


if you are anywhere in this sentence

by sandyk



Category: Fringe
Genre: F/M, reference to offscreen rape, reference to victim of human trafficking, s1 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:35:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5759668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Arrival (s1 ep4), Olivia drives Peter home, to her home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not mine, no profit garnered. Thanks to the JAM as always!

_If you are anywhere in this sentence you are on the shore of it._

\- David Feinstein, from the poem Horizonward 

Between waking up and opening her eyes, Olivia thought about Peter answering the door in his underwear. She remembered how he looked and lingered on it, she didn't really think specifically. Olivia didn't usually react to people like she had to Peter. She didn't give a crap what they looked like in their underwear. She had with John, though. As soon as they were introduced in the regular course of work.

It was nothing, it was more grief. Freakish grief for a freakish death and betrayal. People's skin melted off, John was dying. She was able to talk to him in his coma. John had betrayed his country. John was dead. 

Peter answered the door in his underwear. She watched a man age 40 years and die of natural causes. 

She opened her eyes and got ready for whatever work would bring that day. 

XXX

She liked his face. She liked watching Peter play piano. 

Olivia felt like she was being lied to all the time, by everyone. Even Peter. She wondered at herself, even Peter? Peter was a criminal. Peter wasn't even committed to staying in Boston. Charlie wasn't lying to her. Astrid wasn't. Broyles didn't so much lie as withhold information. It felt like lying, though. It felt like he was keeping things from her that she needed to know. 

Why had Broyles sent her to look into that tip? She realized Peter had started playing another song, nothing she recognized. He glanced up at her as if he realized her mind had wandered. She went back to watching him play. Something moved in her. In her pants, she could hear Rachel saying it. She let herself smile.

Dr. Bishop was standing next to her. He wasn't lying to her. He was just genuinely insane. What did he remember, what was he pretending not to remember? Too many questions. She focused on Peter's hands. 

XXX

The case was mystifying and irritating. A cylinder that exploded down. Broyles once again withheld information from her. He sounded proud that she'd figured it out. A small part of Olivia felt good about that. Most of Olivia was asking questions, trying to fit this new information about the Observer into what she already knew and didn't know. A month into this nightmare and she thought she was good at her job. She was good at this. 

She wasn't sure what this was. There was a cylinder. There was the Observer. Walter had attacked Astrid. A tiny beat under everything that Peter was going to leave. She didn't want him to leave. She liked him. But he was going to leave and she should get used to it and move on.

Olivia drove to the cemetery, faster than she should have. She got there and she saw Peter. She stuffed down her relief, her overwhelming sense of relief. 

XXX

It seemed like hours between the cemetery and walking Peter out of the hospital. It had been hours, but they felt like super sized hours. She thought she had been doing pretty well the last four weeks, putting on her armor. She was doing well projecting competence. 

She thought, as Peter opened the door for her and they left the hospital, she could do better at that. 

Olivia stumbled in the parking lot, falling back against the car. Peter was close enough that he reached for her arm to help her stay standing. He was leaning right into her and she had an excellent view of his battered face. 

Her hand shook. She looked at Peter and then she kissed him. He kissed back after a split second, his mouth opening slightly. She reached up and held the back of his neck. He leaned forward so he was pressing her against the car. 

She grabbed at the waist of his jeans, her fingers brushing his skin. He made some sort of small noise of happiness. He untucked her shirt. Then she felt his warm palm on her skin, while he undid the clasp of her pants. He had one hand holding her waist as he unzipped her pants and then his fingers moving very slowly into her underwear. She tugged at his jeans. She let go and pressed against the growing hardness she felt in his jeans. 

Peter took that as encouragement, which it was. He started touching her, tracing a pattern between her legs. She snorted at the thought, a pattern. 

He said, "When do you find time to make a waxing appointment, Agent Dunham?"

"I don't," she said. Peter kissed her neck. She felt heat where his lips were, and more where his hand was. She said, "I shave. I like a good bath."

"That is unbelievably hot to picture," Peter said. 

It was insane. She was being insane. She'd at least had a date before she let John put his hand on her this way. Apparently at some point in the last month, she'd lost her mind. And decided to start jumping attractive men she worked with. Thank goodness she hadn't lost it like this near Charlie. Ridiculous thoughts were racing through her head but all she was really thinking about was Peter's smell, his fingers and her body. She said, "Wait." His hand stilled.

"Hm?" 

She hadn't even let go of Peter's neck. He said, "Are we stopping?"

Olivia closed her eyes. She said, "No." His fingers started touching her again, this time making her gasp. 

She unzipped his jeans. She reached inside and got her hand around his dick. It was his turn to gasp. He said, "I hate to press pause, but, uh, surely, we can do this somewhere more comfortable."

"Right," she said. She withdrew her hand and zipped him up. He did the same with her pants. Olivia said, "Right." 

She thought about her awful day and how she'd woken up. She didn't move away from Peter pressed close to her. She said, "I think John Scott called me last night."

Peter was still leaning against her, she felt him sigh. He said, "That's weird. I would understand if you saw him or thought he was talking to you, but a phone call is weird." She felt his voice like a rumble. 

She said, "Why weird?"

"If Walter's insane theories are true, and you were able to find Stieg because of them so I guess they are, it could be that part of him, his memories or something, would still be in your head. Your brain wouldn't know how to process it, so you might see him telling you something or talking to you. But a phone call, I don't know how you'd do that." He stepped away from her. "Did I just talk myself out of finally seeing where you live?"

She smiled. He made her smile. She was insane. She said, "No, that's helpful, thank you." She turned and opened the car door. He walked around to the passenger side and got in. She said, "You assume somewhere more comfortable would be my place?"

He shrugged. "I live with my father in a one bedroom hotel room. Actually, outside against the car would be more comfortable, at least for me."

She drove. She said, "How are you feeling? Are you even up for something strenuous?"

She glanced at him. He was nearly smiling now. He said, "I am not going to make a joke about how up for it I am. My head hurts, my ribs ache, but I'm good for whatever. If we're doing whatever."

Olivia said nothing. She couldn't fuck her newly credentialed consultant. She had to have learned something from what happened with John. Six weeks ago she'd been happy with John, now she was here. John was dead, he was a traitor, Walter and Peter Bishop were in her life, Broyles was her superior. Last night she could have sworn John called her. But Peter was up for it. 

She'd driven to her apartment. She parked. Peter looked around. "This is not the hotel."

"No," she said. She hadn't taken off her seat belt though. 

The difference was she had been blinded by love. She knew Peter was shady, he was a criminal. He'd just chosen to stay with them three hours ago. 

She took off her seat belt and got out of the car. She was going into this with her eyes open, and she was not in love with Peter. 

He followed her to the door to her apartment and then into her apartment. He looked around, openly curious. She wondered what he was seeing. She didn't think any of it was very revealing, not anything more than he'd already figured out. She said, "I'm hungry. Are you hungry?"

"I could eat," he said, almost leering. 

She poured out two bowls of cereal and put the milk between the two of them. She found two clean spoons and sat across from Peter. She took off her gun and badge. 

He finished his bowl before she finished hers. They'd eaten in companionable silence. It was very far from anything she'd thought when she'd met him in Iraq. She hadn't thought about anything, she'd been so focused on John. She felt angry all over again at herself, at John. 

He said, "I can walk home from here, actually. If you'd prefer."

"I'll drive you home," she said. "But not now."

He said, "Good."

She went to her bedroom, he followed her again. She took off her shirt and pulled off her bra. Peter sat on the edge of her bed and took her waist. He leaned his head forward and licked one breast, his hand on her other breast. She trembled and sat down on his thigh. "You have great tits," he said.

"Thanks," she said, trying to breathe evenly. He licked and nipped and squeezed and she was already wet again. She ground down on his thigh. She unbuttoned his shirt. He already had colorful bruises on his chest. She ignored the bandage for his ribs. She touched his forehead and then ran her hands through his soft hair. 

She said, "Take off your pants." 

He looked up. "Um, birth control?"

"Taken care of," she said. She'd gotten an IUD even before John. She stood up and took off her pants and underwear. He stopped in the middle of pushing down his jeans to look her up and down, appreciatively. 

He even whistled. She blushed. His jeans and boxers were on the floor. He took her hand and kissed her palm, a strange sweet gesture that made her want to stop, almost. Then she was in his lap. 

She couldn't stop herself from making comparisons. Peter's softer body versus John's cut one. She lowered herself onto him. He grunted, his hands running up and down her back. She held on to his head, hands in his hair again. They moved together. She moaned. She felt finally inarticulate. Nothing racing through her head, just feeling him inside her. 

He held her wrists. "Can you hold my shoulders, just this time, mild concussion, remember?" He sounded more coherent than she would have managed. 

She muttered, "sorry." She pushed down on his shoulders. 

For a man who'd been through what Peter had been through that day, he had amazing stamina. She came first by a minute or so, feeling like her eyes would roll back into her head. He came right after. She got off him and flopped on the bed, on her side. He lay back and smiled at her. She was going to feel that in the morning and it pleased her. She was absolutely insane. Not in the same way as Walter, but completely out of her mind. 

Peter said, "Don't fall asleep, you promised you'd drive me home."

"Right, Walter," she said. 

"I need to talk to him," Peter said, like he was saying "I'm going to drive red hot knives into my eyes."

"Maybe he'll be asleep by the time I can move." She rested her hand on his hip. He should have looked faintly ridiculous, with the bandage wrapped around his ribs and nothing else on. She thought he looked good, though. 

"No way," Peter said. "He'll be awake, dying to talk to me."

Olivia patted his hip.

It was at least ten minutes before either of them got up. It was another ten minutes for her to shower and put her clothes back on. Peter gave her a small smile as they left. 

She drove him home in another companionable silence. She was bone tired and unable to keep her eyes open by the time she was home in her apartment. When she woke up in the morning, she realized she'd fallen asleep on the couch, without even taking off her shoes. 

Peter, she thought. Then, eyes wide open. She went over to her laptop and put aside the files from John's old cases. She found the file she'd first gotten on Peter in her bedroom, in another box. She started seriously investigating Peter. 

She met Charlie for breakfast. As they walked outside, she said, "Charlie, have you looked into Peter's past?"

"I thought you did that," he said, evenly. He glanced at her and she wondered if he'd figured out everything she'd done last night. 

"I don't think I did enough. I was looking again this morning. Don't you have friends over in Iraq?"

"I have contacts," Charlie said. "I can ask."

"Thank you," she said. 

Charlie gave her a look. It was both kind and wry. She said, "I would really appreciate it."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reference to offscreen rape of human trafficking victim.

Then she took Peter and Walter to investigate an elevator that plummeted to the ground. Peter, as she expected, acted like nothing had happened. She went back to the FBI office to look at files. Broyles told her about Jacob Fisher and she was, as he'd said, appalled at what she read about him. She did another search for Peter's past. The lights went out.

John was there, again. Arguing with her, telling her the truth would come out. She stared at the elevator placard and thought about what Peter had said. 

Olivia woke up Peter and Walter with her theory. They discussed it. She felt she had somewhat effectively covered the panic trying to bubble over. 

Walter went into the bathroom and closed the door. She and Peter both looked over as Walter started singing. Olivia said, "I saw John. He led me to the elevator."

Peter nodded. 

"Which is not weird like the phone call," she said. 

"Oh, it's weird. It's very weird." He patted her knee. "But stacked with the very weird things you let Walter do to you, seeing John and especially seeing him as helping you realize something, is not as weird as a phantom phone call."

"But the lights went out. Did I just imagine that?"

Peter shrugged. "Hell, maybe you turned them off. I don't know, Olivia, I'm theorizing with givens that aren't the least bit rational according to anyone except Walter."

"Thanks," Olivia said. She thought about what her research had already found. Peter didn't just owe Big Eddie, he'd worked for the man. Boston PD had sent her a rundown of the kind of activities Big Eddie had been involved with three years ago when Peter had incurred the debt. 

He was looking at her, curious. Even with the bruising, he had a nice face. She shook her head. She said, "How are you feeling?"

"Better," he said. "I need more sleep, though, Agent."

She stood up. "I'll let you sleep. See you in a few hours."

He took her hand, briefly. She smiled at him and left.

More than a few hours later, they were driving back from picking up the pigeons from Peter's "friend." She said, "You worked for Big Eddie."

"Yes, I did," he said. When she looked over at him, he was rubbing his mouth. Then he looked at her and smirked. "We have sex and you decide it's time to really look into my background?"

"No," she said, automatic denial. "You decided to stay. You're not on the verge of leaving anymore, right? Now I have to worry about how your past will impact our work."

"Absolutely nothing to do with you personally," he said, mocking.

She didn't answer. He said, "But have you found anything that makes you not want to do it again?"

"Do you think I will?"

He looked away from her. His turn not to answer, she thought. She said, "So what did you do for Big Eddie?"

"A number of different things," he said. "You know, most of the people involved were like me -- they were crooks, the type who were probably getting coal in their stocking anyway, you know?"

"That sounds like a justification," she said.

"Well, I like to sleep at night," Peter said. 

They didn't talk again until they reached Harvard. 

She saw John again, out by the vending machine. She didn't remember she was processing information. She did remember, but she didn't care. She responded to him like he was in front of her. She loved him. She had loved him. 

Peter broke the vision. He walked up to her and said, "Are you okay?"

She looked back at the space he'd been in. She said, "I saw John, again."

"Twice in one day," he said, lightly. 

She was afraid and overwhelmed. She wanted her life back. She wanted John back. She tried to calm herself. Peter hugged her, hard. He said, "You ready to be super agent again?"

She mumbled "yes," and walked away from him. 

After they caught Jacob Fisher and poor Joseph Meegar, she went home to shower and change. She fell asleep, again, on the couch and was late to her scheduled interview with Meegar. By 5 pm she was sitting in her car, in the parking lot at the Federal Building.

She looked at her phone. She set it aside and picked up the file she'd printed out right before leaving. Charlie's notes from his contacts in Iraq about Peter was sparse but illuminating. He was a criminal, absolutely. He preferred fleecing the rich and the corrupt and he was only occasionally violent. He wasn't, so far as Olivia and Charlie could find, responsible for over a hundred deaths like John had been. She was moving up, she thought, laughing at herself. 

She picked up her phone and called him. 

"Bishop's Roost," he said. "Please tell me there isn't anything gross waiting for us."

"Not that I'm aware of," she said.

"So are you calling about dinner and a movie? Do we get to do that again? Or would you prefer take out and sex, minimal conversation? I can do both," he said.

She said, "I assume you're not in the lab."

"No," he said. "We went home. I'm sitting outside the hotel because sometimes I just have to get out of that room. I don't think Walter noticed because he's very high and very entranced by whatever he was watching on Nickelodeon."

She said, "I could do take out." Because apparently she was going to dive all the way into insanity and this unprofessional action. She said, "I'll pick you up."

"See you then, Agent Dunham."

They ate at the counter where they'd had cereal. Halfway through their silent meal, Peter said, "Walter tried to explain how I knew where he'd hid the cylinder."

"What did he say?" 

"Nothing helpful. Communication is more complicated than you care to imagine, Peter, shit like that." Peter pushed aside his plastic box of palaak paneer and started ripping up his naan. He said, "He did tell me a story of why he considers the Observer his friend." 

He looked at her expectantly. She made a gesture for him to continue while she ate. He told her the story as Walter had related it. 

"I don't understand," she said. "Broyles said they've tracked this one man at different locations for years and years and he's never once interfered. Now we find out he saved you and Walter and he talked to Walter --"

"And shot me," Peter said. "My ribs are much better, by the way."

"It's just weird and inexplicable," she said. She sighed. "Your ribs are feeling better, you say."

Half an hour later he was on top of her proving how much better he felt. It was better than the first time, and the first time had been pretty good to begin with. She held his shoulders again. She closed her eyes. She loved the way he moved. 

She was out of control, going from John to Peter, like she was some sex addict who could only get hot with danger. One time had been wrong enough, acting out after a loss with an available man, but now this was twice. She could make a habit of this and then where she would be, what kind of reputation would she have? Would Charlie be disappointed in her?

Peter stilled in her. He said, "Are we stopping?" Like he was okay if that was the case. 

She said, "No," and moved against him. She bent to bring him in deeper. 

When they were both finished, they lay on their sides facing each other again. Peter said, "You have gorgeous tits."

"You said that last time," she said, smiling. She turned on her back. She said, "What's the worst thing you've ever done?"

"Jeez," Peter said, standing up. "You could at least wait for the afterglow to fade a little." He cleaned up in the bathroom and put on his clothes. She did the same and drove him home. 

When they stopped at the hotel, he didn't immediately get out. He said, "I can give you the top 2 or 3, in my opinion. I don't know if they'll show up your records if you're comparing to test me. But of course, you and I probably have different definitions of worst thing."

He glanced at her and she nodded. He looked out the window. He said, "I was 20, we had just completed this counterfeiting scheme. Not counterfeit money, I had hooked up with these guys who were doing security systems. We were in Chicago. One of the guys sent over his cousin." Peter squinted at something off in the distance. "I thought she was his cousin. I thought she was my age. I thought she was free to go whenever she wanted. None of which was true."

He paused, still not looking at her. "So I bought her," he said, biting out each word. "And then I spent a month trying to find her a place to be safe and cared for. Human traffickers don't actually like when you do what I did, so part of it was not getting caught." Peter rubbed his eyes. "And that's all I did. Just that one girl. And I should have known before I did anything."

Olivia said nothing. She kept her face blank. She wondered how old the girl had really been. She wondered if Peter knew if she was okay now. 

Peter said, "Second, I built three bombs for Big Eddie. He swore up and down they would only be used in deserted and abandoned buildings. I should have known he was lying. It was sheer dumb luck that no one died or lost a leg."

Olivia said, "Then you left Boston?"

"I'm not that good a man," Peter said. "It was another month after that."

"Is there a third? You said 2 or 3," she said, bracing herself. 

He looked at her and then away. He said, "Well, the things I would put up there you probably wouldn't."

She thought immediately of his mother. According to the file, she'd committed suicide. Did Peter blame himself for that? He met her eyes and she felt he could read exactly what she was thinking. He frowned at her and got out of the car. 

The next morning, he wasn't there when she came by, though she didn't think it was intentional. She asked Walter more about his time spent with the Observer and go no real answers. Then she thought about Peter. She said, "Walter, what did you mean when you were talking about Peter's medical history?"

Walter blinked at her. He said, "When did I say that?"

"After our second case, your former colleague who played God. You said if I had seen Peter's medical history, I would know you were guilty of the same thing," she said, stepping closer to Walter.

"I don't remember that," Walter said, transparently lying. His voice hardened. "I had just gotten out of that place, and all the quack medications they pushed on me weren't yet out of my system. I probably said a great many things that made no sense."

"Really, Walter," Olivia said.

"It's nothing you need to worry about," Walter said. 

The Bishops were going to be the death of her, she thought as she walked out. 

She called Astrid as she drove home. "Astrid," she said, "I really appreciate you came back to work with Dr. Bishop."

"And you need me to do something," Astrid said. 

"At the end of our second case, Walter told me that since I had seen Peter's medical history, I knew that he, like Dr. Penrose, had played God. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about, and he told me that was great since he didn't want me to tell Peter."

"Sounds like Walter," Astrid said. 

"I just tried to talk to him about it and he swore he had no idea now," she said. "You're an excellent investigator and you can easily look through his old files and notes to see if you can find anything without arousing his suspicion."

"I bet Peter could, too," Astrid said. 

"Knowing Walter, or not knowing him well enough, I'd like to know what was going on before we have to tell Peter," Olivia said.

"If he takes off his skin at night and is secretly a lizard person, that's on you to talk to Peter about," Astrid said.

"It's not an episode of V," Olivia said. "I'm almost positive."

"I'll get on it tomorrow," Astrid said. "Thanks for the assignment."

Olivia said goodbye and hung up. She looked around and realized she'd been driving aimlessly. Then she saw John on the street. 

She followed him to his hiding place and called the FBI to take all of it. She listened as Broyles told her about what was in the files, how much extracurricular work John had done in pursuit of God knows what. He handed her the engagement ring.


	3. Chapter 3

She shoved the ring in the her glove compartment and closed it firmly. She'd spent an hour looking at the damn thing. She looked at her phone. She called Peter. She said, "This shouldn't be a habit, but how do you feel about more take out?"

"I feel good," Peter said. "How do you feel?" 

"You mean about my research into your past?" She glanced at the closed glove compartment. She said, "I've heard worse than your worst. You're still staying, right?"

"Still staying," Peter said. "Have you heard worse from people you get take out with?"

"We're not using that as a euphemism or a code word," Olivia said. "No, I haven't, but that's because John never told me anything. He kept a lot from me."

"I'm sorry," Peter said. 

This time it was Chinese take out. Somehow Peter made her laugh as they both tried to spear an eggroll. It was a chopsticks duel. She put the leftovers in the refrigerator and then walked out to the living room where Peter was browsing her bookshelves. He pointed at a picture of Ella and said, "Related to you?"

"My niece, Ella," Olivia said. She unbuttoned her shirt slowly. 

"Change of subject," he said. He took off his hoodie and shirt. He pushed down his jeans and underwear. He was only halfway hard. She only had her underwear on. He said, "You have such great tits."

"I'm so glad you like," she said, laughing. He stood right next to her and pushed her underwear down. Then he was on his knees. His stubble felt harsh on her thighs but his tongue was pure heaven. John had loved going down on her, he loved teasing her with his tongue, making her wait to come. Peter pulled her thighs toward him. She ended up leaning back against the couch, her legs open. 

Peter was less of a tease, more like he enjoyed going slow. By the time his tongue pushed into her, she was so ready to come. "Come on," she whined. 

Peter looked up at her. His tongue was replaced by two, and then three fingers up inside her, one curling. She was loud, bucking up against Peter as she came. 

He lifted her up and put her on her back on the couch. She turned onto her stomach and looked over her shoulder at him. "Okay then," he said. He went slow again, easing into her, and back out and back in. He was taller than John, she thought. Then she stopped thinking. He came and then reached under her to make her come as well. 

They were laying on the couch, a tangled mess trying not to fall off. She said, "Do you ever check on that girl?"

"Great timing," he said. "Next time, wait until I'm balls deep in you and ask me about Walter."

"Sorry," she said, stretching her arms up. 

"Yes, I do," he said, getting off her. "She got her GED, went to community college, now she works for an insurance company. Do you want to see her facebook page?"

"Sorry," she said, again. 

He kissed her. He said, "We're getting to know each other, Agent Dunham."

"You have a great butt," Olivia said. 

He wiggled his ass as he walked to the bathroom. 

She didn't see him for four days after that. It wasn't intentional, they didn't have a Fringe case. She didn't have anything to do at the lab. She texted him 2 days after they had Chinese, a late night "hey." He replied wondering if there was any chance they'd get a case to relieve his torment aka spending so much time with his father.

"Fingers crossed for a gruesome death," she texted back. 

Charlie sat down across from her the next morning. He said, "Peter passed your second round tests?"

"There really weren't first round tests, Charlie. Due diligence is important," she said. 

He gave her a long appraising look. She went back to staring at her screen, knowing she was blushing. Charlie said, "But you're comfortable with him now."

"I'm much more worried about his father," Olivia said. 

"Do you think there'll be a point where I get to find out what you're doing when you don't drag me along for my muscle?"

"But you're the best muscle around," Olivia said. 

"I have a brain, too," Charlie said, getting up. 

Astrid came into her office later in the day with a nervous expression. "Please don't tell me the lizard thing is true," Olivia said, hoping for the best.

Astrid sat down and passed a file to Olivia. "Look at that first picture," Astrid said.

It was a gravestone for Peter. A Peter who died in 1985. Astrid said, "I took one of Dr. Bishop's scanners that Peter got bored and improved. There's a coffin under there with a body."

"Peter clearly isn't dead," Olivia said, her voice rising at the end. 

"And he is Dr. Bishop's son, I did a DNA test," Astrid said. 

"Thorough," Olivia said, flipping through the other papers in the file. She stopped at a new story with a picture of William Bell, Walter and Nina Sharp. 

"I'm extrapolating from photos, but it looks Nina Sharp has had some sort of replacement hand since 1985, as well," Astrid said.

"She told me a month ago she didn't get it until 1997," Olivia said. "I can't even pretend to be surprised she lied."

"Here's what I found: Nina Sharp worked for William Bell and with Walter for years before Massive Dynamic was founded. I don't think anyone lied to us about that, but hasn't ever been made exactly clear. She probably knows a lot about all of Walter's grotesque experiments, maybe more than Walter at this point," Astrid said. "Peter doesn't have much of a medical history. Except from 1981 to 1985, when he was in and out of hospitals. The best report I could find was on his last admission when he was 7 - what I could reconstruct points to a rare disease, probably genetic, that was almost certainly going to be fatal."

Astrid frowned. Then she continued, "A lot of records are just gone, like someone wiped them out. I think I found three records and there were clearly a lot more." Astrid pointed at the file. "But sometime in late 1985, it's like there's nothing wrong with him. By 1988, he's even going to school and the school records all say the same thing; healthy, genius, pain in the ass."

"Even at 10," Olivia said, smiling. Then she looked back at the gravestone. 

"Right, it's weird. I could totally believe Walter managed to cure a rare, fatal disease, and knowing Walter, not in the most ethical fashion. But then where does that come from?" Astrid frowned again. "I've been trying to track down Walter's notes from his work that year, but he has no filing system."

"Are we sure this grave is for Peter?"

"You mean, another Peter Bishop born in the same year as the one we know? I checked. And that cemetery is small, private, and 25 miles from the Bishops' lake house in upstate New York. And, no, I couldn't find any other Bishops who frequented the area in 1985 and had a son named Peter," Astrid said. 

"I wonder if this has something to do with the Observer saving Peter and Walter," Olivia said. When Astrid look puzzled, Olivia repeated the story she'd heard from Peter. 

Astrid said, "Peter had to remember something of what happened when he was 7."

"I'll ask him," Olivia said. "And I'm going to talk about Broyles. I wonder how much he knows. When I first talked to him about Bishop, he acted like he wasn't familiar at all with the man. But if he's been working with Nina Sharp for so long, I don't believe he didn't know something."

"I don't know, I bet Nina Sharp keeps a lot of secrets," Astrid said. She paused and then said. "Do you think there's a way we could exhume that grave?"

Olivia took a deep breath. "God, I'd rather not. Let's hope we can get some answers."

Two days later, she finally called Peter. She asked him to dinner at a Thai place near her apartment. When she sat down at the table across from him, he said, "So, what is it now? Do you want me to testify against Big Eddie? I won't."

She stared at him for a beat. She said, "It's not that, but why wouldn't you? Are you worried about what he'd do to you?"

"You didn't ask me here for the pleasure of my company," Peter said. 

"Maybe I did," Olivia said.

It was his turn to stare. She said, "Why wouldn't you testify if we had a case? I could make sure you got immunity for whatever your various crimes are."

"I don't think you could," Peter said. "But that's not why you wanted me here so let's table that." The waitress came by. Peter asked her a question in what she thought might be Thai or Mandarin. The waitress started beaming and laughed. Peter said something else with his hand over his heart. The waitress took their menus and left, still laughing.

"What was that?" Olivia said, with a small smile.

"I correctly guessed she was Chinese and she laughed at my accent," Peter said. "She's getting us something excellent, in her words." He went back to staring at her.

Olivia said, "We're going to talk about that testifying thing. Later." Peter smirked at her. "I wondered if you remembered anything happening when you were 7."

Peter looked confused. "What? Why?"

"Your father's work seems to be linked to a lot of what's happening now. The Pattern," Olivia said. 

Now Peter looked suspicious. He said, "I don't remember. I barely remember my childhood. Almost everything before I was 10 is just vague." 

"Really?" Olivia had a strange sense of dread creeping up the back of her neck. "That doesn't strike you as weird?"

"Of course it does," Peter said. "But Walter used to be an abusive prick and all around shitty father, so I assume it's the usual suppressed memories of trauma." He said it lightly, almost joking, but Olivia had known Peter long enough she thought she caught a note of fear. Or she was projecting. "Why aren't you asking Walter?"

Olivia just looked at him. Peter said, "Fine, but he remembers things. You just have to work on him. Should I do that? Is there a specific thing you want me to talk to him about?"

The food came and it was, as the waitress had said, excellent. Peter said something to the waitress again, clearly exaggerating each syllable. She laughed again and even clapped him on the shoulder before leaving. 

They ate in tense silence this time. Olivia tried to think of why she didn't just tell Peter what Astrid had found. She didn't think Peter had any idea about it. She thought about what that kind of secret, whatever Walter had done, could do to Peter. She worried about Peter and Walter's relationship. She realized she had set herself up for this. She was hesitating because she enjoyed sleeping with Peter. She was actually connecting with him at this point and compounding it with sex, excellent sex.

She was also hesitating because this was a team and she shouldn't just casually blow it up. Then she wondered if talking to Peter could really do that. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. Then she said, "Your medical history. You should ask Walter about your medical history."

Peter frowned at her. "What about it?"

"He mentioned it to me after our second case, he thought it would be in his FBI file. Then he said last week he had no idea what I was talking about," Olivia said.

She couldn't read Peter well enough to guess what he was feeling. Then he said, "Okay, I will. And you think when I was 7 is the time he was referring to?"

"Maybe," Olivia said. 

Peter sat back in his seat. He looked at her and said, "I'm surprised you didn't decide to bring this up 5 seconds after you came."

She rolled her eyes. "Maybe I have something else saved up to bother you with then."

He smiled and leaned forward. "After this time? Later tonight, you mean?"

"You sound very eager," Olivia said.

"You have fantastic tits," he said, quietly. He shrugged. "Or never again if you prefer that."

She knew he meant it now. She smiled back at him. "Tonight is good for me."

She gave him a blowjob that left him nearly unable to stand. She sat back while he got himself together. The kitchen wouldn't have been her first choice for this. She had really wanted him to stop talking, nervously filling the silence. 

He said, "Looking that smug is not attractive." He stood up straight and grasped her wrist. "Don't forget to wash your hand, we both know where those fingers have been."

When he was done, she was laying on her bed, more relaxed and sated than she had been in at least two months. She said, "Now you look smug."

He sat up. She was looking at his bare back. He said, "Maybe I won't ask Walter anything."

She said, "It's up to you. Did you remember something?"

"While having sex?" He looked over his shoulder at her. He got off the bed and went into the bathroom. He came out and started getting dressed. He said, "I didn't remember anything. When I find the right time, I'll ask him."

"Okay," Olivia said. She started to sit up. 

He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I can walk, I'll be fine."

"Text me when you get there," she said. 

He called 40 minutes later. After 30 minutes, she had been pacing nervously, checking her phone every 3 minutes. Peter said, "Ever since dinner I've been gripped by this need to run from here and you as fast as I can."

"But you're still here," she said. "Right?"

"I am in the hotel right now," Peter said. "In my room, even. Walter is dead to the world and this room would give Bob Marley a contact high."

"Good," she said. "Why do you want to leave so much?"

"I have no idea," he said. He was silent for a moment. 

She said, "You should stay."

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said, softly.


	4. Chapter 4

She woke up sore. She smiled thinking of the good parts of the previous night. She was making a huge mistake, but for now, it felt good. Then she remembered that today was her birthday. Peter's gravestone had distracted her for a long time from remembering it. She couldn't forget on the actual day. 

She was in a foul mood when she picked up the Bishops and drove them to the scene. She watched Walter humming. Peter said, "You seem cranky."

Olivia said, "I am. Nothing to do with you."

"Got it," he said. 

The scene was grotesque. But Walter worked and Peter helped and they brought the bodies back to the lab. Olivia nodded at Astrid as they came in. Everything was running just like nothing else was happening. 

Charlie wished her a happy birthday. 

It was a whole awful case. Dr. Patel shooting his head off in front of her. The complacent evil of David Esterbrook. That Peter had gone to Nina Sharp to make her feel better. She should have told him that they thought Nina knew so much more than she was telling. 

She got home and found the letter slipped under her door. She wanted to scream. She wanted to call Peter which seemed like the worst idea in the world. 

Instead she left her apartment and went to a hotel. She called no one.  
She woke up at her usual time of 5 am, exercised, showered, and stepped outside her motel room. Peter was sitting on the walkway, sipping a coffee, and reading the Boston Globe. He smiled at her.

"What are you doing here?" She was snarling.

"I brought you a paper," he said, evenly. He handed it over. "And a coffee." He gave her a coffee he had next to him. She took a sip. It tasted more expensive than the kind they usually had. He stood up. 

She glared at him. He said, "I broke into your apartment." He held up his hand as she got ready to kick him off the balcony. "Charlie yelled at me for it, a lot. He also said it was up to you to tell me why a birthday card upset you so much, though I have to say, he seemed really upset, too. Then I used the GPS on your bureau car to find you here. Please don't throw that coffee at me."

"How dare you break into my apartment?" She stomped past him, throwing the paper on the ground. She heard him pick it up and walk after her. 

He said, "It was 4 am and you weren't answering your phone. I haven't had a lot of sleep last night or the one before, so I was admittedly acting badly. Sleep deprivation wrecks my moral compass. Also, in my defense I called Charlie right away so I sort of reported myself."

She wanted to scream at him. She said, "If you ever do something like that again, I will have you arrested and prosecuted."

"I agree," Peter said. "Why do you hate your birthday?"

She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. She turned around and drank some of her expensive hot coffee while looking up at Peter. He looked worse in a way than when he'd been tortured. She said, "I had a stepfather." She told him the whole story. 

"So that sociopathic fuck managed to find where you lived and slip that card under your door?" He reached out tentatively. When she didn't hit him, he gripped her shoulder. "What are you going to do?"

She shrugged. "Move, I guess."

"I think Charlie would track him down and kill him for you if you asked," he said. 

"He offered once," she said. 

"He's a good friend," Peter said. "You should take Charlie up on that and not move. Or let Charlie find him and you kill him. Whatever works for you."

She rubbed the back of her neck. "It's just a letter."

Peter looked like he was stopping himself from saying something. She could imagine. She said, "Why did you want to find me at 4 am? And you're not forgiven."

He said, "After you and Astrid left, I searched her desk. I wanted to know why you thought 1985 was so important."

Olivia nodded. She drank more of her coffee. She was warming up. 

Peter said, "So there's grave with my name on it."

"Did you show it to Walter?"

He shook his head. "I did talk to him or tried to for the rest of the night. He swears up and down he doesn't remember. He says he's not supposed to remember. Apparently I was very sick when I was a boy. He talked about making a teleporter slash time machine. Oddly enough, I didn't find it that crazy that he successfully made a time machine, or thought he did. He said the second thing was the one that worked. Literally his words: 'but that wasn't what I used.' Then he said he didn't remember and he'd always loved me and he would do anything for me. At that point he was too hysterical to get anything out of him. I let him drug himself to sleep. And it was 3 am." 

Peter had finished his coffee. He crushed the paper cup in his hand. He said, "So I packed my bags, put them in the station wagon and headed south for half an hour. Then I turned around and broke into your apartment. And now we're both caught up."

She stepped closer to him, her arms crossed on her chest. She said, "I'm sorry for all of this. If I'd never gone to get you in Iraq, you wouldn't be …" She didn't know what to say next.

"Walter would still be my father," Peter said. "And there was a bombing in Kirkuk, remember? I'd probably be dead."

"You were right," she said. "I only started looking into you because we slept together."

"It wasn't exactly a dumb move. Looking into me," Peter said. "I'm sure you think the sex was a bad move." He almost sounded like he was teasing her. 

She said, "I think Nina Sharp knows more than she's telling."

Peter walked past her towards the station wagon. "I think that's a given in absolutely every situation."

"If you don't want to make Walter cry again, you could try to confront her," Olivia said. 

"Right now, I want to sleep for the next two days. Or at least three hours," Peter said. He'd opened the door and was talking to her across the car. 

She said, "Sleep tight." She got in her car. She watched Peter pull away. Then she drove to the Federal Building.

It was another nothing day. They had no cases. Astrid had emailed that she was making very little headway with Dr. Bishop's notes. She had started surreptitiously sorting them by year but it was slow going. Olivia told her to specifically focus on 1981-1986. Maybe ignoring the other years would make the searching go faster.

She didn't hear from Peter. She texted him before she went back to her apartment, asking if he was still in Boston. 

She unlocked her apartment door. Nice of Peter to lock it up as he left. She barely stopped herself from drawing her weapon and clearing each room. She did walk through the whole apartment before taking off her weapon and badge. 

She sunk down on her couch, holding the card. She missed John fiercely. The John she thought she knew and loved. He would have made a quick joke, talked her out of her silly fears. He would have let her stay at his place without question. 

He would have been lying the whole time, of course. 

She started as her phone buzzed. Peter had replied. His text said he was in Boston, in the hotel with his father. 

Then her phone rang and it was Peter. He said, "You know, you're killing me, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that," she said.

"Do you know how long it's been since someone tried to ask me questions about morality and justice?" He almost sounded casual.

"Were you pretending to be a grad student at the time?"

"Grad students in chemistry don't ask each other questions like that, trust me, it's more of a physics thing," he said. 

"I'm glad you're still in Boston," she said.

"So is Walter," Peter said. "And I should get back in there."

She slept badly. 

A nothing day stretched into another nothing week. Astrid reported that both of the Bishops came into the lab every day and acted like nothing had happened or changed. Olivia could believe that. Walter looked back through his old records, remembered experiments and drug trials. Peter helped out and was appalled. Astrid thought Peter seemed less snippy, less impatient with his father. 

Astrid also reported she had found some disturbing things, but she was still trying to put together a complete picture of the five years in question. "Would be nice if we could get access to William Bell's notes," Olivia said. 

"Let me know when Massive Dynamic approves that," Astrid said with a laugh in her voice.


	5. Chapter 5

A week after her birthday, Olivia was looking at some seriously out there websites full of crackpot theories about William Bell. He was probably not planning to create his own universe by collapsing the current universe with another one. He was probably not breeding his own superior monsters. Probably, Olivia thought. 

She had called Peter before she realized she was thinking about picking up her phone. He said, "Agent Dunham," eagerly. 

"Are you hungry?"

"Are you planning on springing some horrible new news on me, or is that just food?"

She said, "Just food."

"Is this just food or food and possibilities?"

She took off her reading glasses. "We'll see."

She succumbed to the possibilities. She and Peter fit so well together. It was a sign of how bad Olivia was at relationships that she kept ruining this one. 

She was sweaty, naked, and exhausted. She was barely moving. Peter still had his mouth on her left breast. She said, "You just like me for my breasts."

"They are great," he said. He rolled over with a flop onto his back. "I like you for lots of things."

"Mostly the sex," she said, firmly. 

He didn't answer. After a few minutes of quiet, Peter said, "I should get home."

"I'll drive you," she said.

"No, I can walk. Don't worry," he said. He kissed her, a quick brush on her lips, and got off the bed. She heard him get dressed. 

The next morning Broyles summoned all of them because of his friend's "condition." Olivia couldn't look away from the plant/beast encasing Loeb's heart. Walter found the DNA sequence that led them to David Robert Jones and ZFT. Broyles told her there was much she didn't know yet about the Pattern. She said she wanted to know. She said, "I think Nina Sharp has been hiding things from you."

"Why do you think that?"

"When I met her, she told me that she had lost her arm to cancer in the 90s. But I've seen compelling evidence she lost her arm sometime in the mid 80s. Probably 1985. She used to work with Walter, even back then. Did you know that?"

Broyles's expression didn't shift, but she was sure something she'd said had startled him. He told her about ZFT. 

Olivia flew to Germany.

Despite the strangeness of the case, Olivia was starting to feel normal again. She felt less like a person spiraling out of control and more like the agent she was trying to to be. Negotiating with the German men at the prison, she felt herself. 

She went home with Lucas to his place. She listened to him, opened up. She was connecting with him, she thought, laughing at herself. She should stop sleeping with Peter. She should be a better agent. Then Lucas kissed her. She gave into it for a moment. Then she thought about her last kiss and the one before. She pulled back. "I'm sorry," she said. "There is someone, sort of. I'm really not good at this."

Lucas smiled. He was a good man. By the time Peter called, she was in a cab, heading back to her hotel. 

She talked to David Robert Jones and was dragged out. Astrid got her the information in the nick of time. She said goodbye to Lucas. 

She saw Peter at the hospital. He said, "I've been cleared, please take me out of here."

"Cleared? I didn't realize that whatever Walter did was something you needed to be cleared after." She stopped herself from reaching out to touch him. 

"I promise to tell you everything if you take me somewhere," he said. 

She took him to to the Thai restaurant where he'd charmed the waitress. She wasn't there this time. Peter wasn't in much of charming mood, either. 

Peter said, "First, Walter confessed, after I remembered it, that he used to shock me, literally hook me up to a car battery and give me electrical shocks, when I was 10. Maybe even before. But suddenly my memory loss seems to make a lot more sense," Peter said. 

"He hooked you up to car batteries?"

"Yes, he did. He was barely ashamed of it," Peter said. "So, whatever he doesn't remember that he doesn't want any of us to know is, in Walter's eyes, much worse than giving a 10 year old kid electrical shocks from the family car."

Olivia frowned. What had she done, bringing Walter out of the asylum and forcing Peter to take care of him? Maybe she would be listing this on her 3 worst things she'd ever done. She said, "So how did he get you to talk to the dead Mr. Smith?"

"He shocked me again. And gave me some seriously scary drugs," Peter said. "It was fun."

"You keep telling me how insane I was to have let him do that to me," Olivia said. "Do I get to say that to you?"

Peter shook his head and ate his pad thai for a few minutes. "I don't even know why I did it," Peter said. "No, I know why I did it, I want to help. I didn't want an agent to die. But I don't know when I became that kind of person."

"Maybe you always were," Olivia said. 

"No, we both know I wasn't," Peter said. "Remember how you got me to get on that plane in Iraq. Or, remember what didn't work."

"I should have shown you my tits," Olivia said.

"That would have worked," Peter said, nearly smiling. 

"Clearly," she said. 

She had an invitation on her lips but Peter said, "You should take me home."

"Of course," she said. "Can I finish eating?"

"Yes," he said, actually smiling. 

Two days later she had sex with him again. Walter had insisted on some sort of food related excursion. Peter told her that Walter had also somehow talked Astrid into going with him, so Peter had a free Saturday afternoon. Olivia drove over. 

Once she was inside, Peter put a chair under the door knob. "Are we worried about someone breaking in?"

"Walter," Peter said. He held her by the waist and leaned down a little to kiss her. She clasped her hands behind his neck and rose on her toes. Peter said, "Am I assuming too much?"

She was sure it would be better to end things now. She was hardly over John. If anyone knew she was fucking her consultant, her reputation would be absolutely ruined beyond repair. But she really wanted to. She said, "You are, but I forgive you."

She stepped back and took off her sweatshirt. "Are we doing this on the bed?"

"God, no," Peter said. "No sex is happening on Walter's bed. The couch is fine."

It was. She moved up and down on his dick. She sucked on her fingers and then reached under to push them up into him. He swore, repeatedly. He came first, loudly. He said, "You look way too smug." He laid her on her back. He made her swear then, with his stupid wonderful mouth. 

They actually showered together and then got dressed, sitting back on the couch, the blanket they'd fucked on in the laundry basket. Peter removed the chair while Olivia started flipping through channels. She was still a little dazed in a good way. She said, "It's funny, John loved fucking me in the ass, but he never wanted to try anything with his ass."

"That is funny," Peter said, in a mocking tone. "I would happily fuck you in the ass if you wanted me to."

"I didn't hate it, I actually enjoyed it, but," she said. She blushed and rubbed at her face. "I'm sorry, I can't believe I said that to you."

Peter just smiled at her. Then he said, "Well, don't go buying a strap on on my behalf."

She covered her mouth before she laughed. She said, "But you wouldn't object if I already had one."

"Do you?"

"No," she said. She did laugh. "This conversation is surreal."

"This conversation is, in my experience, is pretty normal for two people who are having sex with each other," he said. "Maybe not the part where you started by comparing me to John. I don't want to hear the other comparisons, by the way."

Olivia nodded. "Maybe it just feels surreal to me. I don't usually do this, you know."

"You should talk about sex frankly with your sexual partners, I say," Peter said. "What you like, what they like, where you like to be touched, where they want to be touched."

"Yes, thank you, I've glanced at a Cosmo magazine once or twice," she said. She looked over at him. "I didn't mean it that way."

His face said plainly that he knew the way she meant it. She said, "I don't mean it in an insulting way."

"No, not at all," Peter said. He took the remote from her hand and changed the station. "Let's watch something else."

"Hey," she said. "Maybe I was watching that."

"What was it?"

She smiled and put up her hands in surrender. She was coming down from her sex high. She said, "You can't think this, us, is a sane relationship."

"Who am I to judge that?" He looked engrossed in whatever they were watching now. 

"You're just in it for my boobs," she said, trying to get him to smile.

"Well, I was, but now I know anal is in play," Peter said, glancing down to look at her. 

"Maybe," she said. 

Peter said, "And John was an idiot."

She pressed her lips together and tried to pay attention to what was on the screen. 

He said, "I like to pretend all of your post-sex waffling is your subtle way of being nice to me. You're trying to distract me from thinking about why it looks like I died 20 years ago."

"I wish that were true," she said. 

They were both sitting quietly on the couch, watching a documentary on the birth of guns, when Astrid and Walter came in. 

"Well, what were you two doing," Walter said, smiling and rubbing his hands. "Were you having intercourse? Did you use my bed?"

"We were doing nothing like that at all, Walter," Peter said. If she didn't know better, she wouldn't have known he was lying. Peter added, "We didn't even touch your bed."

Walter said, "Well, that's too bad."

Astrid said, "I'm glad you're here, Olivia, I was going to call you. I found something very interesting last night."

Olivia had a flash of panic. Then Astrid said, "Guess who worked for Nina Sharp and William Bell for years and years starting back when Massive Dynamic was founded?"

Walter said, "Me? Was it me? I don't remember that."

Astrid smiled at him. She said, "No, Walter, not you. David Robert Jones."

Peter said, "A guy we know to be ZFT, who we believe is linked to the pattern, was part of Massive Dynamic?"

"It doesn't surprise me," Walter said. 

Olivia said, "It doesn't really surprise me, either. Walter, do you remember working with Nina Sharp?"

"Of course," Walter said, sitting on his bed. "We met back in the 60s, for goodness sake, through Belly. She was, she interfered," Walter said, his voice loud and angry on the last word. 

Olivia said, "With what?"

Walter frowned and got up. "I don't remember, actually. I'd like to go to sleep now, thank you."

Peter said, "Walter, it's 5:30, are you really trying to kick everyone out?"

"I would like to go to sleep," Walter said. He turned his back on the three of them and started unbuttoning his shirt. 

"Okay," Peter said, grabbing his phone and wallet and keys. "Astrid, Olivia, who wants to go out to eat?"


	6. Chapter 6

Olivia trailed Broyles to his office as Broyles talked about their new case. A boy had been abducted. His abduction fit a profile, though he was the first child to be taken. Peter and Dr. Bishop walked behind her. 

Peter and Walter sat down on opposite sides of the office. Walter said, "Flashing lights. I remember something like that."

"Remember from where?" Olivia looked at Walter. 

Walter said, "That poor boy, taken from his father. I did that once."

Broyles said, "Dr. Bishop?"

Walter said, "I did that to you, Peter." He told them the whole story, from his son's death to the parallel universe, to the end. "I'm sorry, Peter. I just remembered all of it, I'm sorry."

Olivia had watched Peter during Walter's recitation, his expression getting more and more blank and lifeless. Now Peter stood up and walked out. Olivia started to follow him, but stopped when Broyles said, "Agent Dunham."

She looked out the door where Peter was walking steadily away. Broyles said, "I'll call Agent Francis in and we'll see you back here soon."

She said "Thank you" as she left.

She caught up to Peter. She said, "Peter."

He turned to look at her. He took his credentials off his jacket, tried to hand them over to her. She didn't put out her hand and the card fell to the ground. She bent down to pick it up and he started walking again. The next time she caught up to him she stepped in front of him. "Peter," she said. She held out his credentials and her house key. "You can stay at my apartment," she said. He didn't move to take them so she put them both in his pocket. She stepped out of his way. 

He jammed his hands in his pockets and left.

She pulled herself together and drove out to interview the father. She called Charlie with the highlights. He said, "How was your morning?"

"Better than Peter's," she said. 

"I heard," Charlie said. "So, really, there are parallel universes?"

"I guess so," Olivia said. 

"I'm going to start on the traditional investigation," Charlie said.

"I'm driving to the lab for the nontraditional."

When she got to the lab, Walter and Astrid were already hunched over a strip of lights. "Agent Dunham," Walter said, mournfully. "I have informed Agent Farnsworth of what I did. But also, I have figured out the lights. The green and red lights. The green and red lights put that poor man in a hypnotic state so the woman could run off with his son. And I remembered where I heard about the lights. Dashel Kim, from St. Claire's. Maybe you could talk to him?"

She called Broyles from the car. He told her Dashel Kim was a 1027 and they could only talk to him if the administrator at St. Claire's approved. 

Sumner was a jackass. She called Charlie and asked him to go over and talk to Walter. "I just need to make a stop," she said.

She used the hide a key to get into her apartment. She said, "Peter?" as she walked in. There was no answer. But she saw a box by the couch. It had a number of Peter's documents. She saw his passport and birth certificate. There was a backpack and another bag on the couch. She was pretty sure she'd seen both before, somewhere.

She found Peter in the bedroom. He was only wearing his boxers, on his side with his back to her on her bed. She briefly wondered if he was alive. As she got closer, she smelled the alcohol. He was passed out, not dead. There was an empty bottle of scotch of her bed. At least half of it had spilled on her blankets. So he hadn't finished the bottle, just enough of it to stop caring about being in someone else's house. She shook her head. At least she knew where he was. She reached out and shook his shoulder. "Get up, please, just for a minute." He grunted and rolled over on his back. There was a vial by where his head had been. It was half filled with a white powder. Her first thought was cocaine, but she was dealing with a Bishop. Who knew what the fuck Peter had had stashed away for the worst days? 

She shouldn't be blase about undoubtedly illegal designer drugs, but she was positive it was the first time Peter had used since he'd been in Boston. She took the vial and bottle of Scotch. The empty bottle she put in her recycling bin, the vial she hid in her sock drawer. Then she shook Peter again. "If you don't wake up, I'm calling 911 to get your stomach pumped." It took a few seconds but Peter opened his eyes. 

She said, "Get off the bed for a minute or two so I can put on fresh sheets." He nodded. He actually managed to walk out to the living room. She changed the sheets and put the soaked ones in the washing machine. Luckily it hadn't gone through to the mattress. She remade the bed. In the living room, Peter was nodding off in a chair by the couch. She woke him up again and guided him back to the bed. She said, "Any chance you're overdosing?"

He said, "No," and closed his eyes. She pushed him onto his side so he wouldn't choke if he puked. She pulled the blanket over him. She sat for a moment next to him, holding her forehead. Then she made herself get up. She kissed his cheek and left. She regretted the kiss. She hoped he wouldn't remember it.

Back at the lab, Walter had decided he would go back to St. Claire's. She and Charlie drove him. She couldn't decide if she should tell Walter she'd seen Peter. Who was her loyalty to in this situation?

She said nothing. She and Charlie waited for Walter to come back. Charlie said, quietly, "How was your stop?"

She glanced at him. "I gave Peter my apartment key, and he had, thankfully, gone there."

"He's from another universe," Charlie said slowly. 

"I'm still absorbing that," Olivia said. 

They talked through what Broyles had told Charlie and what Olivia knew. They did so quietly and making sure they weren't facing the cameras. Neither of them had a good impression of Dr. Sumner. Charlie said, "Parallel universe."

"Walter said something about deja vu. And time. Time is not each moment happening one after the other. We make decisions. And entire universes happen where we do something different," Olivia said. 

"How does deja vu come into it?"

"Walter said deja vu is when you come to place after your parallel universe you has been there. You feel like you've experienced it before because some other you has," Olivia said.

"That makes no sense," Charlie said, leaning back minutely. 

"I know." Olivia looked around and then back at Charlie. "Do you remember 2 months ago when we worked cases that made sense? When our coworkers weren't from another universe?"

"Yeah," Charlie said. "But John knew more than he let on and he didn't tell you or me."

"Even though he loved both of us," Olivia said.

"He loved me more," Charlie said. 

Then Sumner came to find them to tell them he was going to keep Walter. Olivia said, "Peter Bishop is his legal guardian, you can't do that. You can't keep him here."

"Yes, I can and I will," Dr. Sumner. She and Charlie stormed out. She was calling legal counsel while Charlie drove. 

Charlie dropped her off at her apartment. She said, "I'll come in soon to help with the canvass."

Peter wasn't awake this time, either. But he had been. He'd made something to eat and put the dishes in the dishwasher. He'd found her wine, and had at least three cups. There was a half full glass of water on the bedside table. He was passed out again, back on the bed, wearing a t-shirt. She sat down next to him. He'd rifled through half of her drawers and made no attempt to hide it. She felt around on the bed and found the now empty vial. "You could have at least cleaned up," she said, throwing out the vial in the bedside trash can. 

"You shouldn't have hid it," he muttered. 

She laid down on top of the blanket so she was facing him. She said, "Do you want to talk?"

"Not in the least," he said, still not opening his eyes.

"Do you have plans to take more drugs? Drink more of my booze?"

"Probably the second," he said. "I can do it somewhere else."

"No, I'm good," she said. "I have to go."

He tugged the blanket over his head. 

She was back at the FBI when their legal counsel called back. She wanted to cry. She said, "Okay."

She drove back to her apartment. Peter was still in bed. She rubbed his back for a minute. Then she said, "Peter. Are you awake?"

"What?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I have to ask you this. Walter went back to St. Claire's to talk to one of the people he knew there. That man had been abducted by the same woman. That asshole Sumner is trying to keep him there. Our attorneys can get Walter out, but you have to sign the papers and come with me to get him out." She said, "I'm sorry," again. 

He sat up and rubbed his face. His eyes were bloodshot and it looked like he'd had a nosebleed. He said, "Walter went back to St. Claire's."

"We still need to find that boy, Ben. Walter thought his friend Dashel could help."

Peter looked dully at the ceiling. "I'm sorry," she said.

"You've said that to me three times, Olivia," he said. He got out of bed and stood. He said, "Let me shower and we can go." 

Peter still looked stoned so she drove through a fast food place and ordered him fries and a coffee. He said, "Thanks."

He didn't seem any more sober when they got to the counsel's office, but the minute he walked through the doors, he seemed to have snapped into place. He signed the papers and thanked the woman for her quick work. Then he got back into the car and zoned out again. 

"What did you take?"

"Nothing you need to worry about," he said. "It's probably not technically illegal."

"So not cocaine," she said.

"I don't need to stay awake and be even more of an asshole," he said. "Really, Olivia, don't worry."

"Okay, I'll ignore your nosebleed and general air of being half in a coma," she said.

"I am also still pretty drunk," he said. He sighed. 

She glanced over at him and then back at the road. She said, "So it's a designer drug, basically."

"Private label, trademark me," Peter said. "I took it all."

"What does that mean?"

"I won't come down for at least a day, and you don't have to worry about me taking any more of it," he said. 

When they got to St. Claire's, Peter was instantly intense and focused. He practically snarled at Dr. Sumner. Walter came out and hugged Peter, sniffling. Peter didn't hug back, but he said, "Come on, Walter, let's get the fuck out of here."

In the car, Peter closed his eyes and fell asleep or did an excellent imitation of it. Olivia questioned Walter about anything he'd learned and passed it on to Charlie. Charlie called her back an hour later and told her they'd found the boy, thanks to the red castle tip. She told Walter. She stopped at the hotel and walked Walter up to his room. He said, "Thank you, Olivia. Do you think Peter will want to talk to me tomorrow?"

"I have no idea," Olivia said. "I'll see you tomorrow. You did a very good thing, Walter. You helped save that boy."


	7. Chapter 7

When she got back down to her car, Peter's eyes were open. She got in and started the car. She said, "Were you actually asleep or did you hear that we found the kid?"

"I was asleep, thank you. This shit is great," Peter said. "Is the boy okay?"

"He is," Olivia said. "Is that what you call your own designer drug trademark you, 'shit'?"

He smiled. "I made three vials, just for me, and that was the last of it. I never got around to picking some sort of clever name."

When they got back to the apartment, she ordered pizza. She found Peter laying on her bed, staring up. 

She went into the living room and moved his bags to the floor. She opened the backpack and confirmed that Peter had a loaded glock in there. She made sure the safety was on and zipped it up. When the pizza came, Peter came out of her bedroom and ate with her. He said, "Do you want me to sleep out here?"

"Do you mind sharing the bed?"

He smiled at her. "Any chance of sex?"

"Not when you're this high," she said. 

"Fair enough," he said.

When she woke up, they were spooning. Peter was holding her waist. Her alarm was blaring and she reached up and turned it off. She needed to get out of bed. She grabbed her phone and listened to her two messages. The first was from Broyles telling her to take the day off, though she should be prepared for a call at any time. The second message was from an hour later, Broyles telling her he was going to speak to Nina. 

"Someone's in trouuuuuble," Peter sang in her ear. He sounded happy about it. 

Olivia said, "When were you making designer drugs?"

"Never for sale or distribution," he said. "I had a completely legal job as a chemist for an above board company in Mexico City. I faked my resume but I went in every day and did the work."

"Why?"

"I didn't spend the last 14 years of my life constantly engaging in fraud," Peter said. "There were times when I did honest jobs and went straight."

"Then why go back to cons?"

"I just always wanted something different eventually," Peter said. His voice was deep and even. She was sure he was still on whatever drug he'd made for himself. She wondered if he'd lied about using up all his supply. 

Peter said, "Now that I know, it seems pretty obvious. Deep down I knew something had happened to me and I wasn't home. Deep down I remembered waking up and every single thing in my life was different even if the people looked the same."

"Maybe now that you know, you can do something different," Olivia said. She closed her eyes and gave herself three deep breaths to snuggle. Then she lifted his arm and got out of bed. She did sit ups and push ups. She dressed for running. She stood at the edge of the bed and said, "Do you want to come?"

"No, not at all," Peter said. He was on his back now, eyes closed.

When she came back, Peter had set up on the couch. He was watching TV with his eyes barely focused. His eyes were red and his cheeks were wet. She decided not to ask if he had been crying. 

"Do you want breakfast?"

"I can eat," Peter said. 

They had another meal together. Peter spent the day drifting in and out of consciousness, drinking, staring somewhere off into space. She wasn't sure how she would process the kind of news Peter had had so she let him do his thing. 

She went into work that afternoon. She thought about what Walter had said about the first breach. She ordered files on every incident that could be a fringe incident since 1985. After three hours she'd found two loci in addition to Reiden Lake. She went into Broyles's office to show him. He looked quietly furious. She said, "Did you speak to Nina?"

"I did," Broyles said. "She finally told me that Dr. Bell has been living on the other side for months. She gave me a few other files. She would have lied for years and years."

"I'm sorry, I know you trusted her," Olivia said. "What were the other files?"

"Cortexiphan," Broyles said. "William Bell and Walter Bishop experimented on children. Bell theorized that we are all born with extraordinary abilities and growing up set in limitations. So he created a drug to reduce those limitations. They did a first round in Ohio and Florida." Olivia felt a shiver in her spine. "Children as young as three. Then they resumed the trials in 1985, after Walter stole Peter."

"Was I," Olivia looked down and away. 

Broyles said, "Yes. I believe you might have been."

Olivia rubbed her face. "I don't remember any of it."

"That looks like they something they planned," Broyles said. "I had no idea when we put together this team that I was reuniting all the players. I'm sorry, Agent."

"You didn't know, but Nina did," Olivia said. "They gave me this Cortexiphan? What, what does it do?"

"We'll have to ask Walter, unfortunately," Broyles said. 

"Tomorrow," Olivia said. "I think tomorrow is a good time."

"Do you think Peter will be back at work?"

"No," Olivia said. "I don't understand this."

Broyles pulled over a whiteboard and started writing. "We know that Walter and William Bell's experiments have been the basis for continued exploration, sometimes with even less scrupulousness than those two could muster." He wrote 'WB, WB experiments.' 

Olivia said, "And Walter made a door that broke the universe." Broyles drew a line from what he'd just written and wrote at the end of the line 'universe breach, PB kidnapped from other side.' Olivia said, "I went through all our files since 1985, and there's a definite pattern coming out from Reiden Lake, where Walter said he activated the door. I think the breach led to points where weird phenomena happened and/or was exploited." Broyles noted that.

He said, "We know ZFT was behind a number of Pattern related incidents." Broyles wrote ZFT in one corner and drew another line from ZFT to the incidents that were also linked by Walter's breach. 

"And we know of at least two people associated with ZFT who worked at Massive Dynamic, so that takes us back to WB and WB experiments," Olivia said. 

Broyles said, "Somewhere on here there should be agents from the other universe. Walter and Nina were both clear that someone, some things have come over here."

Olivia said, "This makes me head hurt."

Broyles nodded. "I think we need to explore ZFT and Massive Dynamic's connection. And somewhere on this chart we still need to add the Observer."

"He attaches to Walter's door," Olivia said. "That's the one and only time we've seen him do more than observe." Broyles added it.

Olivia tried to smile. "All we have to do is make sense of that chart and we'll have answers."

Broyles shook his head. he said, "Go home. Get some rest for once."

She clutched the files Broyles had given her about the Cortexiphan and drove home. Peter was still on the couch. He looked at her and said, "I'll make you some dinner."

She nodded. She sat in the middle of the couch on top of the blanket Peter had put there. She opened the files. 

Peter came out with two plates that smelled amazingly good. "Did you make chicken?"

"No, if any one can take credit for chicken, it's probably the forces of evolution, maybe God, if you believe that. But I did bake two chicken breasts and vegetables just for us," he said.

"Ha, ha," she said. She immediately dived into her dinner. She mumbled "This is good," after finishing the moist chicken. She was already shoveling the broccoli into her mouth.

"Thank you," he said. Peter was eating with less fervor than she was. He'd probably had lunch. 

As soon as she finished eating, she was exhausted. She yawned and went into the bedroom. Peter called "sleep tight," from the living room. She wondered if he would get in the bed later. She almost hoped he didn't. She needed to stop having sex with him right now. She should have stopped it as soon as it started. She wasn't afraid she'd be unable to resist if he were in bed with her. She didn't want to have to reject him. 

She dreamed she was young and John was next to her. She knew even in the dream that it was John even though he looked like the 7 year she was in the dream. White flowers waved and John was speaking to her, adult words and ideas. She couldn't hear him. 

She woke up at 3 am, gasping. She sat up. Peter wasn't in her bed. She went into the living room. The couch looked slept on, but he'd folded up the blankets. His stuff was still next to the couch. He wasn't in the apartment. He'd taken his phone and, she thought, his wallet. She checked his backpack. He hadn't taken his gun. 

He hadn't run. She was anxious anyway. She called his phone and there was no answer. He'd read the Cortexiphan trials file she'd left out. He would have seen she was one of the kids. She was embarrassed that he knew, that Broyles knew. She remembered nothing. She re-read the pointless file. She called Peter's phone again. 

Maybe he had somewhere else to stay, she thought. It wouldn't be hard to find someone less damaged than she was. Someone who was excited to be in a relationship with him. 

She was excited, she thought. It just wouldn't ever work and certainly could not work now. 

She was being an idiot. He was probably still processing everything Walter had told them. Olivia hadn't really thought about any of it. She thought about Walter's son dying in his arms. Olivia looked over at the picture of Ella. How did anyone even get up in the morning after something like that? 

There was another universe, like this one. Just slightly different. More advanced medicine. There wasn't another Peter, Walter had taken him. There was probably another Olivia. Someone else just like her. Except maybe her life had been completely different. Who would Olivia be if her father had lived? No stepfather. Maybe another sibling. She would have liked a brother. 

She wondered what the other John Scott was like. 

She was staring at her phone when it rang. It was Boston PD. They'd found Peter.


	8. Chapter 8

Two hours later she was standing by his hospital bed. She watched the monitors calmly beep or stay silent. Boston PD thought Peter had tried to buy his way out of Big Eddie's clutches. The mobster had taken the money but apparently decided to emulate local gangs and "jump" Peter out. So he'd been beaten to shit. Peter looked horrible. He would look worse tomorrow. Someone had stomped on his right hand and his right ankle. Olivia wondered if they had ever realized Peter was left-handed. Maybe they'd forgotten. 

He'd been stabbed, too. The police detective had told her they thought it was more of a jump out than an attempt to kill Peter since they'd mostly avoided anything that was immediately fatal. "That's good," she said. 

Maybe Peter would testify against Big Eddie now. Or maybe he still wouldn't. 

When Charlie came into the room, she sat down, suddenly exhausted. Charlie said, "Jesus, he looks bad."

"Two broken ribs, broken bones in his ankle and wrist," Olivia said. "Stabbed three times, he'll have a few scars. Everything else is bruises."

"So after stabbing him, they just kicked the shit out of him while he was on the ground," Charlie said.

"Basically," Olivia said. "I think he was trying to settle his debt with a local bookie."

"Big Eddie," Charlie said.

Olivia said, "You do your research, too." She pushed her hair back. "Maybe he did settle his debts." The same thought came back to her, just like it had 100 times since the cops had told her what had happened. He wanted to stay in Boston. He wanted to stay in Boston so he had to figure something out. 

Then, again for the 100th time, where had the money come from? 

Charlie looked at her. He said, "I'll call Broyles and Astrid. Astrid can tell Walter."

"I can tell Walter. Just don't make me stand up just yet," Olivia said. 

Peter wasn't much for talking when he started to regain consciousness. Probably because of the extensive bruising on his face and the three teeth he'd need capped. One eye was swollen shut and the other only half opened. She said, "Hey," and his left hand moved. She said, "Do you want paper? To write?"

The nurse in the room said, "He's fingerspelling. Like sign language but he can do it with one hand."

"Can you read it?" Olivia shook her head. "No, never mind, I don't want to keep you. I'll find someone to take care of it."

"I can send an interpreter down," the nurse said. 

Olivia frowned. She said, "Okay. I'm going to call, too, though, we work on classified cases."

"You can just write it down," she said, while they waited. She'd called Astrid to ask about an interpreter. Astrid had volunteered, noting she had been a linguistics major. Apparently the development of sign language was fascinating. 

When the hospital interpreter came in, Olivia immediately explained that Peter could hear but couldn't comfortably speak. She was sure she sounded exasperated. The interpreter glanced at her and Olivia didn't try to figure out if she was being judged. She said, "Peter, tell me what happened."

The interpreter seemed to pack a bit of contempt into his voice as he said, "I fell down."

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Peter."

The interpreter said, "He's repeating that he fell down."

"So you still won't testify?"

The interpreter said, "Yes."

Olivia said to the interpreter, "That didn't look like three letters."

"He used the ASL word for 'yes,' it's doable with one hand," the interpreter said. "He knows ASL as well, I assume." Peter made the yes motion. 

"You already fell down, why not testify?"

The interpreter said, "Other people can fall down."

"Do you mean Walter?" She saw the yes again. 

Olivia looked down, away from the wreck of Peter. She said, "Did you fall down so you could stay in Boston? To be free to be here?" 

The interpreter said, "Yes." He paused and looked over at Olivia. "Fell down is a euphemism, right?"

Olivia nodded and Peter made the yes sign again. Peter's fingers moved. The interpreter said, "I want to stay in Boston. I want to help. Even with Walter."

Olivia said, "Then where'd you get the money?"

The interpreter said, "Savings."

"You had enough in your so-called savings to buy your freedom but you didn't use it before?"

The interpreter said, "I think his painkillers are kicking in, he's not spelling well."

Olivia could see Peter's eye closing. She touched Peter's red knuckles. She said, "I'll be here when you wake up."

The interpreter said, "Will you need me later?"

"No, we have another interpreter coming in, don't worry."

Olivia fell asleep in a chair in Peter's room. Astrid woke her up. Astrid said, "I let you sleep an hour or so. Peter wasn't awake either."

"Is he now?"

Astrid nodded. She sat on Peter's left side. Peter's fingers were moving again. Astrid even laughed. 

"Is he funny?"

"In his own way," Astrid said. 

"I want to know about the money, Peter," Olivia said. 

Astrid said, "He says savings."

"You had savings to pay off Big Eddie?"

Astrid paused. She said, "He says he did."

"You weren't peeing your pants in Iraq at the thought I would call him even though you had his money in your so called savings?" Olivia glared at him. He closed his eyes.

Astrid said, "He says certain circumstances made more of his savings available recently."

"Peter, what did you do for the money?"

Astrid glanced over at her. She said, "Don't worry about it. He repeated that twice."

Olivia rubbed her forehead. She said, "It doesn't work that way. You know it doesn't."

Astrid said, "He says the scam in question was many many years ago. Stat, wait, statute of limitations is probably up."

"That makes it better," Olivia said. "Peter, there are things I can't protect you from, and if you've done something, Broyles and I can't just wave our credentials around and get you out of jail."

Astrid said, coldly, "I'm not repeating that."

Olivia looked over at her this time. Astrid was glaring at Peter. Then Astrid said, "He says he understands."

"Did he really?"

"He really did," Astrid. "Eventually."

"I need to get to work," Olivia said. "Astrid, thank you."

"It's fine," Astrid said. "I brought Walter. Do you want to see him, Peter?" Olivia recognized the yes sign. 

Olivia waited outside while Peter and Walter talked through Astrid. She didn't wait that long before Astrid came out. "Peter passed out again," Astrid said.

"I couldn't forgive Walter," Olivia said. Astrid sat down next to her and shrugged. 

Walter came out and sat down next to Olivia. He said, "What happens now, Agent Dunham? When will Peter get out of here? What will we do then?"

Olivia rubbed her forehead. Astrid said, "Charlie and I worked it out, Walter. You and Peter will be moving to an assisted living home temporarily. For Peter. But you'll have a room right next to him, don't worry. You two will be there about a month, and by then we'll have found you a nice place to live near campus."

"Assisted living?" Walter sounded disdainful. Olivia glared at him.

"Well, given Peter's injuries he'll need a few days of constant nursing care and then more days where he needs nursing visits and physical therapy. You don't just walk off broken bones in your foot and ankle," Astrid said, calmly. 

"Who's paying for all this?" Walter frowned at Olivia.

"Homeland," Astrid said. "Stop complaining, Walter."

"I wasn't complaining," Walter said. "I just don't need assisted living."

"It's not for you," Olivia said. "It's for Peter." She looked over at Walter. "Actually, now that I have you, Dr. Bishop, I wanted to ask you about the cortexiphan trials."

"Oh," Walter said. "Oh. I suppose Nina decided to share that piece of information."

"Yes," Olivia said. "She decided to share that you and William Bell experimented on children. Including me. Are there any other skeletons we can expect to find if we keep digging?"

Walter nodded. "Lots, I would expect." He sighed. "Can someone take me home? I want to sleep a little before I come back in the morning."

Astrid took him home. Olivia went back inside Peter's room and sat in the same chair. Peter was asleep. She said, "I should go home." But she didn't get up.

Broyles called and woke her up. She was sore and awkward. He told her she needed to meet the plane. Charlie would pick up Astrid and Walter. Poor Sonia, Olivia thought. Olivia was 15 minutes late to the airport because she'd rushed home to change into cleaner clothes.

On the plane, Broyles asked about Peter. Olivia sat back while Astrid gave the update and then Charlie explained what would happen going forward. "The assisted living is for Peter, not me," Walter said. 

When they landed, Walter maneuvered himself next to Olivia in the car. He said, "Agent Dunham, I wanted to tell you what I remember about cortexiphan. I don't remember a lot. I'm not just saying that, you know. I really don't remember. I look for associations, you see, in music and food, but my brain. It's not what it once was."

"I know, Walter," she said. 

"Belly was obsessed with this idea of how children had so much potential. We thought we were preparing these children. We were trying to make them extraordinary." Walter looked down at his fingers, his own nervous twitching. "I realize now you were already extraordinary. You are, Olive."

She glared at him and spat out, "Don't call me that. Why would you call me that?"

"That's what we called you," Walter said, cowed. Olivia saw Charlie glance back at her in the rear view mirror. "You were always the strongest. I'm sorry, I'm trying to remember."

"Don't call me that," she said.   
Thankfully, they were at the scene. Walter was gleeful again, looking at the body, examining the cuts. Olivia looked up at the shattered window. She said, "Someone will need to talk to Nina."

"Got it," Charlie said. "I haven't had the chance to meet her yet."

"Count yourself lucky," Walter murmured. He said, "Agent Dunham, come look at this." He showed her the cuts underneath the shirt, clearly not from glass. Olivia looked away and saw John Scott. He was watching her. 

They brought the body home so Walter could examine it. Charlie said Nina hadn't been helpful. "Like talking to a shark," he said. 

While they were in New York City, Peter had been transferred to the new place. Walter called her to complain. "This place, it is too sterile. There are superbugs, antibiotic resistant staph infections lurking in the corners."

Olivia drove over to calm him down and check on Peter. Walter was already calm, watching TV on a big screen in his room. "Oh, oh, sorry, feeling much better."

Peter was asleep in his room. She took in all the medical equipment. She sat down next to him and said, "You have a broken ankle and a broken hand, do you really need all this?"

Peter murmured, "Nice to see you, too."

"He speaks," she said.


	9. Chapter 9

Peter shifted in the bed. His eyes weren't open. Olivia got up and sat on the side of his bed. He said, "Lay down, Agent Dunham. Enjoy the luxury."

"Just for a minute," she said. She laid on her side, on his left side. She felt his hand in her hair. She said, "You forgave Walter."

He said, "Sort of. I had a lot of time to think, you see."

"You had three days. Four."

"It felt like a week or two. I make great drugs. Anyway, I had time to think. He loves me. He spent all that time in St. Claire's, he tortured himself. I can't run away from this, no matter how much I want to," he said. He sounded slow, drugged. He had a tiny hiss in his voice from his cracked teeth. 

"And you got your ass handed to you," she said.

"Thank god, they stayed away from the ass and the penis. My ass, my penis," he said.

"You are on a lot of painkillers," she said. 

"I do actually have more wrong with me than just a broken ankle, which is actually two broken bones in my foot and one in my ankle, and a broken hand, which again, multiple broken bones. I'm in bad shape, Liv," he said. "You should be nice to me."

"I feel bad about your teeth," she said.

"Getting fixed next week," he said.

"Where did the money come from, Peter?"

He said, "You remember the counterfeit security systems?"

"And the girl," she said. 

"Yeah," he said. He sighed. "I spent most of my profit on that thing I told you about, and giving her a trust fund. Two months after, I stole everything the other four made and put it in an account in the Caymans. Which I did not do as well as I wanted to. They didn't know it was me, but they knew about the account. So I couldn't really touch it."

"But now you can? You did?"

"The great things about criminals if you're waiting for them to stop paying attention to something, the great part is they tend to die young. First one died 2 years later, drug overdose. 3 years after that, one of them drove drunk straight into a building. Next one died in a police shoot out. And finally, number 4 died a few months ago from sepsis," he said. His fingers moved in her hair. It was comforting. He said, "You should go to the doctor if one of your employees stabs you, always remember that, Liv."

"I will," she said. "So why not pay off Big Eddie a few months ago?"

"I didn't find out until a few weeks ago. Right after I decided to stay in Boston, believe it or not. So I transferred the money, some to me, some to the girl, withdrew the rest of it in cash. Then I decided to forgive Walter and I needed to stay so there you go."

"You've given that girl a lot of money," she said.

"Doesn't make up for what I did," he said. His voice sounded tired. "I should have known."

She didn't say anything. She knew she should get up.

She dreamed of an address. 

She heard a voice say, loudly, "Excuse me, Ma'am."

She opened her eyes. She had fallen asleep in Peter's bed. An unhappy nurse was looking at her. "You need to get up now. Carefully."

"Sorry," she said. She got up carefully and looked around for pen and paper. 

Peter said, "Olivia, if you stay, I think they're going to be changing bandages."

"Mr. Bishop, please stop joking," the nurse said. 

Olivia said, "Good luck with that." She reached past the nurse and squeezed Peter's good hand. 

The address which she knew was from John led her to frogs. She had the frogs sent to Dr. Bishop. She went home and showered and changed. By the time she got to the lab, Walter was brimming with excitement. "The frogs!" he said, over and over again. "We are definitely keeping them."

She explained it to Charlie, "The frogs, there's a chemical in them. Basically, using this drug, people will literally imagine themselves being killed, like the man from Massive Dynamic. Walter has some frightening home videos from his own experiments if you want to see it demonstrated."

"No interest at all," Charlie said. 

"John Scott gave me the address. I keep, Charlie, I keep remembering things he knew."

Charlie looked at her. "Because you shared his consciousness," he said slowly.

"I know it sounds insane, but you've been in the lab, you've spent time with Walter. We've been working with an alien from another universe," she said.

"Peter's not an alien," Charlie said. 

"He's not from this planet," she said. "Anyway. It's not the first time I've seen John, or gotten messages from him."

"Okay," Charlie said. "But you can't exactly interrogate John's memories even if they're in your head." He looked pained at saying that sentence.

"Maybe there is," Olivia said. "Let's go see Walter."

It took a lot of convincing but it worked. She went into the tank. She saw John and herself on that first date. She sat down across from him and talked to him like he was there. She was so angry. She loved him so much. Walter told her to move on, John didn't see her. But he looked right at her.

Then she saw the man from Massive Dynamic and saw John kill the other man. She screamed and flailed. The doors of the tank flew open and Charlie dragged her out. 

They found the one remaining conspirator and Charlie went to New York to talk to Nina about what they'd learned. Olivia was reporting to Broyles when he got the call that their witness had died. 

"So, what have we learned?" She sat down in Broyles's office, looking at the whiteboard. "Where does this fit in?"

"Maybe we won't make everything fit," Broyles said. He stood in front of the whiteboard. He wrote "JS" in one corner and drew a line to the ZFT. 

"Maybe this is another link between ZFT and Massive Dynamic," Olivia said. 

"Maybe," Broyles said. He turned towards her. "Have you spoken to Dr. Bishop about the Cortexiphan trials?"

"A little," Olivia said. "Not more than you heard. I did get Peter to admit where he got the money he paid to Big Eddie. He stole it from other criminals he worked with 10 years ago. So we don't have to worry about that biting us in our ass, I'm almost positive."

"Good," Broyles said. 

XXX

She went by every evening to visit Peter. He was getting better. She would sit by his bed and they would watch documentaries or some silly movie. She brought dinner for herself and Peter would always steal about half. "The food here is horrible," Peter said, every night.

"Walter is socializing," Olivia said. For once Peter wasn't trying to eat her food, since he'd finally got his teeth capped earlier in the day. 

"He can't stop complaining about how he doesn't need assisted living, but apparently, he loves hanging out with people who do need assisted living. Except for me," Peter said. 

"Yesterday you said he was clingy," Olivia said. 

"He's not very stable," Peter said. "He is the definition of instability. Yesterday he didn't want to leave me to go to the lab, he followed me into the bathroom until I made him leave and today he can't wait to get to the lab and as soon as he gets back here, he takes off to see Mrs. Kellner upstairs because she is quite the dancer."

"He's dancing," Olivia said.

"I don't want to know," Peter said. 

"You get to go the bathroom on your own now," Olivia said.

"It's not that exciting," Peter said. He looked over at her. He said, "I got him to talk about the cortexiphan trials yesterday, that's probably why he's running away today."

Olivia nodded and looked at the screen. They were watching a documentary called Jesus Camp. There were little kids on the screen.

Peter said, "Walter said he remembered you now, because when you were only 3 you saw the other side and you made a room explode. With fire. And it inspired him and William Bell to work harder on developing their machines to see to the other side. Because at the time, they were most interested in copying the technological advances of the other side. Then they stopped the trials, or Walter stopped them. He was being a little self serving, he always likes to remember himself as a better man than Bell." 

Olivia said, "I saw the other side and I blew up a room."

"When you were three," Peter said. 

They watched the documentary in silence. Olivia thought about the message from Rachel on her voicemail. Rachel wanted to visit. Olivia had already said yes. She couldn't wait to see Ella. 

Olivia said, "I was thinking about the ZFT. I asked my friend to look into it, Lucas, in Germany. He found evidence there is or was a book by that name, in German. But we can't find any copies."

"I know a guy," Peter said. "Next week I get to go out for short wheels around and everything. You can drive me there."

They watched more. Peter said, "My ex-girlfriend visited yesterday."

"You didn't tell me," she said.

"It wasn't personal," he said. "I didn't tell Walter either. It was weird."

"Are you getting back together?" She was chilled at the thought.

Peter laughed at her. "She isn't very fond of me, Olivia. She came by to say hi since it's now safe to see me. Hi and fuck you, basically."

"Were you done wrong by her?" Olivia even smirked a little.

"No, no, I did her wrong. She has every reason not to be fond of me," Peter said. "I was confused by her visit. Still am."

"Maybe she did want to get back together with you," Olivia said. "Or she was thinking about it, but then she saw your teeth."

"Good point," Peter said.

XXX

They flew to see the man in the wall; Olivia, Astrid, Walter, and Charlie. Olivia thought about seeing Peter miserable in a wheelchair. "I thought he was getting a crutch," Olivia had said.

"Walter had some idea about making it better," Astrid had said, darkly. 

Olivia glared at Walter on the plane. She said, "What kind of superpowers did I have as a child?"

Walter looked cowed. He munched on gum. He said, "Fire. Seeing the other side. Going to the other side. Once you made the lights flicker."

Olivia leaned her head to one side and looked at him with less heat. She said, "Like that time I saw John and the lights went out?"

Astrid and Charlie exchanged glances and Olivia felt guilty for not telling them all the weirdness they lived with. Walter said, "Oh, maybe. Maybe he can access your cortexiphan abilities." Walter chewed his gum furiously. "Oh, oh, yes. That's a fascinating thought. We should, well, no. We can't. You should not go in the tank again, it would be unbelievably dangerous."

"And if Walter's saying that," Astrid said. 

They got to the bank. "I know him," Olivia said. "I know him."


	10. Chapter 10

But Olivia didn't. While Walter and Astrid stayed in Philly to chop out the parts of Raul they thought they would need, Olivia came back to Boston. She found herself parked outside the assisted living home without consciously thinking of it. She went inside anyway. Peter was on his bed, laying on his back, a book on his chest. He smiled as she came in and pushed the book to the floor. "Do you want me to get that?" Olivia added, "I'm not going to."

"It's hard reading one-handed." She climbed onto the bed, another movement without conscious intent. She lay on his left side.

She said, "I can't fall asleep."

He reached past her head and put his new cell phone on his stomach. He set the alarm for 20 minutes. He said, "How was your day, Agent Dunham?"

"We went to see a man who was stuck in the wall. Like, literally, his head and hands were sticking out on side, his feet were sticking out on the other side. It seems to be part of a series of robberies. Safety deposit boxes. They're walking through walls, we see now," Olivia said.

"You look more freaked out by walking through walls than I would have expected," Peter said. His eyes were a little glassy. She wondered if it was the painkillers.

"I recognized the man in the wall. Raul Lugo," she said. "Except I said where we met and Charlie said it was impossible. Because it was. John was the one who knew Raul."

Peter hmmed. He said, "You have a chunk of his consciousness and memory in your brain and that's hardly first experimental procedure your brain has endured. Poor Olivia brain." 

"You're on painkillers," she said.

"I'm in pain," he said. "Plus, I started physical therapy today which really wasn't much, but it's harder than I expected. I'm not wrong about your brain."

"No," she said. "Walter thinks a lot of John's tricks with the phone and the lights to make me notice him, they might be the cortexiphan. Apparently, John is better at using it now than I am."

Peter hmmed again. He said, "I'm about to fall asleep. Tell me more about the case."

"To put you to sleep?" She propped herself up on her elbow for a moment to look at his tired face. He hadn't shaved in over a week. She wasn't sure how she felt about the beard. Not that her opinion mattered. Not that she could really tell, given the bruises all over his face. 

"Nope, I want to help before I sleep."

She told him about the boxes. She recited the number of each one.

He said, "I know those numbers. I know them. Before Walter and I got separate bedrooms, he would recite them sometimes to get himself to sleep. Which never worked. But Walter hides things. He used to hide a lot of things. You should ask him."

Olivia nodded. She closed her eyes. She and Peter both started when his phone's alarm went off. 10 minutes of sleep each she figured. She touched the one spot on his face that seemed unbruised. "Go back to sleep," she said. "You helped." 

"Since you ask nicely," he murmured. 

Charlie came back from interviewing Lugo's widow with the news that they were separated and he had a list of Raul's friends to check out. Charlie said, "Astrid? Come with?" Astrid stood up smiling and followed Charlie out. Olivia stayed with Walter. Lugo's hand was radioactive. 

She asked him about the numbers. He said they were a famous mathematical sequence. "Peter would have known if he'd done anything with his education," Walter said. Olivia just looked at him. "I don't," Walter said. He looked up. "I did have those boxes. It was, before I started watching the other side to see if the other Walter had cured his son, I made a machine to get this doctor, a doctor who died in 1936. That doctor had cured something similar to what Peter had. The machine would allow me to go back to 1936 and bring this doctor back."

"In the boxes you put a time machine?" Olivia couldn't keep the skepticism out of her voice. Of course, this was the same man who had stolen his son from a parallel universe and gave Olivia super powers when she was 3. "A time machine?"

"Theoretically," Walter said. "Also a teleport machine. I called it DizRay because it disassembled the person and put them back together. It really was a very clever idea. Belly helped a little, too. But I made the door instead. And I was worried about, well, everything. I snuck over and stole their child, I was sure they would be coming for me. So I hid the machine. I remember now." Walter smiled and began eating his yogurt. 

"Okay," Olivia said. "Where else did you put the pieces?"

"No idea," Walter said. 

She pulled the records they had on Walter's movements in 1985. She found all the previous thefts. After Philadelphia, Walter gone to a number of places. She asked him if he remembered which one. He shrugged again and opened another yogurt. She went into her office and called Peter. He was, thankfully, awake. He said, "You want to get Walter to remember something? Direct questions never work. Especially if he's embarrassed. Try asking about something else. You want to know where he hid the remaining pieces? Ask him about the cities. Ask him about the food. He always remembers food. He also remembers women which you're probably a lot more comfortable asking him about than I am."

"I will definitely try," she said. 

"Tell me about any women you might have met," Olivia said. "Were they pretty?"

"They are always pretty," Walter said. "I remember a woman in Providence, she had the most shapely legs, right out of a comic book!"

She got Walter to remember Providence and even which bank. Broyles told her to go to Providence and get the last piece. Charlie and Astrid were off to the VA Hospital Lugo was at to find his team. There wouldn't make it up to Providence before the bank closed but Olivia decided to try. So she and Walter were standing outside the seemingly empty bank. "If they're in there," Olivia said. She called the bank manager at home after she got the number from Broyles. It was another twenty minutes before the woman arrived. Olivia apologized but made sure they were let in. "Now we need to get into this safety deposit box," Olivia said. 

When they got to the vault, Olivia heard noises. She motioned for Walter and the bank manager to step back. Olivia approached slowly. There were two men who had just blasted the safety deposit box. She said, "FBI, FREEZE!"

They both whirled on her. One went back to the box, the other came at Olivia. She shot him in the leg and then shot at the other man. She heard the bank manager scream. Olivia remembered that in the previous break ins, the security personnel had been killed. The man on the floor struggled to get up, Olivia kicked at his ribs and crotch. She shot again at the man struggling with the safety deposit box, this time he fell down. She grabbed the box as a third man came forward. He was holding Walter at gunpoint. "Let's trade," he said. 

"Where's the bank manager? What happened to her?" Olivia made herself sound more desperate, more flustered. The man relaxed and Walter whimpered. Walter sneezed and Olivia shot the man in his hand. She shot him again and he fell over. Walter said, "Gezunheit! And the bank manager is just unconscious. He hit her in the head. She might even be faking."

Olivia passed him the box and then directed him to run upstairs. She dialed 911 and then Broyles for back up. She wanted to check on the manager, she'd looked okay when they ran by. The men shouldn't bother with her. Olivia really wanted to check and make sure all three didn't somehow escape by walking through walls, but that would mean leaving Walter and the box unprotected. 

She had handled this all wrong, she should have gotten back up. Then she heard the bank manager scream again. She turned around and a man wearing a mask was dragging the bank manager with him. "Give me the box," he said, in a low growl. 

Olivia hesitated. The man shot at her and Walter. She heard Walter yelp as she ducked. The bruised and whimpering bank manager landed with a painful thump on Olivia. The man had thrown her, she thought. Poor woman, she thought, as she scrambled to get up. The man and the box had disappeared somewhere. 

The police and FBI finally arrived. 

The interrogations of the three men she'd shot initially went nowhere. Walter pointed out that some of them seemed to have radiation sickness. One of them finally caved and they had a kind of lead. "Little Hill," Olivia said. "Whoever these people are, they are trying to use Walter's machine and bring someone to Little Hill field. I am sure of it."

Charlie and Astrid were in one car and Olivia drove alone. She got out nearby. 

Then her head split open and everything went black.

Olivia woke up bound and in pain. Someone had taken her. Someone. They flipped her over and she screamed in pain as they dug into her spine. She passed out. She woke up on her back. She had to get out. She had to get out. When she was three she had superpowers, she thought idly. She begged for water. She smashed her way off the bed. She beat the next one. She grabbed things she could find, proof, and then she heard more voices. They were coming for her again.

When she was three, she set a room on fire. She had done that, she could do that. She ran for the door. She smelled smoke. She turned around and saw flames. She had a phone in her hand, she'd grabbed a phone. She called Broyles. There was a fire. 

Cars pulled up, she heard the fire trucks come. She saw Charlie get out and she gave up on dignity. She let him hold her up. "I made the fire," she said. "I made the fire."

"You're gonna be fine," Charlie said. 

She woke up again in a hospital room. Peter was sitting next to the bed. He was in a wheelchair. He said, "Hey, Drew Barrymore, good morning."

"Are you making fun of me?" She sat up gingerly. "Why are you here? Where's Charlie?"

"I'm here because I like you," he said, frowning. "The actual FBI and Walter are picking over where you were held captive."

"How many are dead?" She started to get off the bed and stopped. 

"No one's dead. The guys you beat up are beat up, the other three suffered smoke inhalation. Walter is going over all the evidence he could find," he said. "They used Walter's machine to get David Robert Jones out of his jail cell. He hasn't been found. Other questions?"

She sighed. "No," she said. 

"So will you please shift over so I can actually hug you?" It was funny, he sounded angry. 

She did move and he held her tight with his left arm. She shifted again and kissed him. He kissed her back, eagerly. Then he sat back and wheeled away from the bed. She sat back on the edge of the bed. Then she heard the door open. 

Broyles came in and said, "How are you feeling, Agent Dunham?"

"I'm fine, sir," she said. She pushed her hair out of her face. "What's going on? Who took me?"

Broyles frowned. He said, "We don't know. Unfortunately, I just received news that we do know one person who took you. Agent Loeb."

Peter said, "Loeb?"

"We found conclusive evidence of his involvement with ZFT, the robberies, and your abduction."

"I'm sorry, sir," Olivia said. 

"Worse, we haven't found him yet," Broyles said. "Do you really think you started that fire?"

Olivia looked him straight in the eye. "I do. I felt it."

Broyles sighed. "Loeb may be out there. Gunning for you. Wait for Charlie to drive you home."

"I could run over his feet," Peter said. "I still have a good left hook."

Broyles barely moved but Olivia was almost positive he was thinking of smiling. Broyles said, "I'll keep that in mind. Charlie should be here in an hour."

After he left, Olivia looked around for her clothes. She said, "Pants, bra, underwear, no shirt."

Peter offered her his hoodie. She decided to take it. She changed in front of him without thinking. She thought they would get through it without comment. Peter said, "Your boobs are still great."

She rolled her eyes at him and zipped up the hoodie. She looked at herself in the mirror in the bathroom. She looked like a college student doing a walk of shame. She went back into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Peter said, "So, you used your super abilities. How was that?"

"Horrible," Olivia said. "But I knew I had done it, so I thought I could do it again. Maybe. I was trying to get away."

"And you did," Peter said. "You did."

"I can't believe Loeb was working for Jones," Olivia said. 

"He was risking a lot letting himself have that thing inside him. We cut that pretty close to the wire," Peter said.

"And why couldn't Jones communicate the place they were going to use in another fashion? How did they even know I would go to Germany? Who calculates that many variables?"

Peter looked up at the ceiling with a small smile. "Oh, you have," Olivia said. 

"It's an elaborate con," Peter said. "Is it that hard to find out you have an ex-boyfriend with influence in Germany?"

"He got captured on purpose so I would go there and he could say little hill to Loeb so they would know where to set up the endpoint to get him out of prison? That sounds ridiculous," Olivia said. 

"It doesn't sound like you really think it's ridiculous," he said.

She rubbed her face. "It's so ornate. Why not do things the easy way?"

"Or they were rolling with it," Peter said. "Jones didn't mean to be captured. Once he was, they set in motion plans to get him out. I'm sure they weren't counting on Smith dying. If Smith hadn't died, he would have linked us to Jones, Jones could pass on the signal with a phone call."

"Why take me? How did they know about Walter's machine?"

Peter said, "Maybe they took you because of the cortexiphan. Jones worked for Bell and Nina Sharp for years and years. Maybe he knows about the trials from Bell and maybe he knew about the machine from Bell."

"I hate this," she said. 

"Remember the pigeons? That was fun," Peter said.

She nearly smiled at him.


	11. Chapter 11

Charlie came and drove her home. Peter got a cab. The very best part of the day was seeing Rachel and Ella waiting outside her door. Charlie told her Broyles had given her the day off. 

It was wonderful having Rachel and Ella there. Olivia brushed off Rachel's question about her injury. They sat in the living room, talking and laughing and it was wonderful. She felt better and better every moment Ella sat next to her, grinning. 

Ella fell asleep right after dinner. Rachel looked over Olivia and said, "So, who's the guy?"

"No guy," Olivia said. 

"Okay, Olivia, I want you to remember that I am your sister. And you actually don't have to be Super Agent Olivia Dunham with me," Rachel said. "I know you."

"There might be a guy," Olivia said. "But not really. Not really. I was, I was seeing John for over a year."

"John, your partner John?" Rachel looked sad for her. 

"And he died and he was a traitor and he lied to me over and over again," Olivia said. "And then a month later, I'm, I'm something with Peter. It's clearly nothing real."

"I'm sorry John was a jerk. We sure can pick 'em," Rachel said. "But you don't know this guy is nothing real."

"Yes, I do," Olivia said. 

"Is he cute?"

Olivia found the file on Peter and took out a picture from two years ago. Rachel said, "So, pretty cute."

"It's not about cute," Olivia said.

"Why not? You had a horrible break up, maybe, judging from what you said, even the world's worst. Why don't you get to act like everybody else and have some fun? Especially with pretty cute boy," Rachel smiled. Rachel always ended up smiling. She put up with so much but she was joyful. Olivia felt a little bit proud of that. 

Rachel said, "Also, since it's totally not real, you won't mind if I borrow your jacket?"

"It's not mine," Olivia said. "No borrowing."

"Sure," Rachel said.

XXX

She was late for Peter and Walter's party. They had moved into their very own townhouse, paid for by Homeland and a little bit of Peter's own money. "From my salary," he said to her. 

Olivia sat with Astrid at the dinner table eating some dessert Walter had just whipped up. Astrid said, "Don't worry, I watched every step of preparation." It was light as air pastry with a custard filling. 

"I have to take you on the tour, dear, Peter is still recovering," Walter said. 

Peter said, "6 weeks and I'm not running a marathon yet, I'm clearly a slacker."

Walter showed her the top floor and his bedroom. It was the master bedroom with a large bathroom. Walter had already put his own stamp on it. He had somehow gotten posters of David Bowie and Violet Sedan Chair that were above his bed. Olivia looked at the framed pictures on the wall. "Is that Peter's mother?"

"Yes," Walter said, seriously. "My dear Elizabeth." Then he was grinning and he said, "Look here, I have an electronic toothbrush!"

The second floor had the kitchen and living room and the guest bathroom. Walter, and she was sure it was Walter, had put in bright yellow hand towels with smiley faces embroidered on them. All the bookcases were full, and she'd seen boxes of books in Walter's room, and here in the living room.

"So Peter is downstairs?" 

"Yes, I am," Peter said. "I'll show you later."

"I'm not allowed in without knocking," Walter said. "He locks the door."

15 minutes later, Astrid had left and Walter had gone upstairs to his room. Peter said, "Wanna see my etchings?"

She had had a glass of wine. She smiled. Peter had the ground floor to himself. His own door out, his own shower. "It's almost like you're not even living with Walter."

He flopped down on the couch, pushing his modified crutch off to the side. "This was originally a duplex. The last owners took out the kitchen that was down here and had their aging parents down here. I think one of them died on the bed," Peter said. "Not that bed, because that's new, but someone died here."

"You had to have creepy," Olivia said. She sat down on the bed. "Not this bed, though."

"I take it you weren't late because we finally found Loeb," Peter said. 

"No, of course not. 2 weeks and we haven't found Loeb, his wife, David Robert Jones or any sign of any of the above doing things," she said. 

She had found it easy to step down her relationship with Peter. She only saw him at the lab. She took Astrid to accompany her to interviews or Charlie. It was how it should have been, she thought. Consultant and agent, also friends, but nothing more. Peter seemed perfectly fine with it. She said, "I'm late because Ella said one more book three times."

"You love living with them," Peter said. "I think you're happy Rachel left her husband."

"I am," she said. "Greg is a jerk. She deserves better." She looked at him, sprawled on the couch. "Is it weird living with Walter, knowing he kidnapped you and everything he did?"

He looked at his hands and said, "You used to wait until we'd just had sex to ask those questions, but I guess since we're not doing that anymore…"

"Sorry," she said. "You don't have to answer."

"When do I not answer you?" He grabbed his crutch and pushed himself up to standing. "Of course it's weird. He lied to me about my whole life and took me from my family. But he did it out of his twisted idea of love. And he's out to lunch, I mean, whatever euphemism you use for not quite sane, that's Walter. I told you, I want to be here. I want to make sure Walter is okay. It's very prolonged Stockholm Syndrome, I guess."

He sat down on the end of the bed and started changing into pajama pants and a tee shirt. She hadn't seen his chest since the hospital, he had painful looking scars on his chest. She said, "Are you upset we're not having sex anymore?"

"I'm not an asshole, so no, I'm not upset with you for not having sex with me. I certainly enjoyed it and you did, too, but clearly outside the sex, the whole thing made you miserable. So, just friends, all good," he said. "Actually if you could get up so I can get in bed?"

She did. She said, "It didn't make me miserable. You never made me miserable."

"You called it insane and unhealthy more than once, I'm sorry I took that as something that made you unhappy," he said. "I don't mean to rush you out but I'm going to take my painkillers and then I'll just be lying here, drooling, passed out. You can stay and watch."

"No, I'm sorry," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She drove home feeling guilty. 

Luckily Rachel was awake so she could not talk about it. Rachel said, "How was the housewarming?"

"Mostly good, then I felt like an asshole, so typical party," Olivia said.

"Were you an asshole or did you just feel like one?"

"I sort of was," Olivia said. 

"Cute guy you've stopped having sex with? Which, hello, bad idea," Rachel said.

"The sex was the bad idea, not stopping," Olivia said. "There's just so much going on you don't know, Rachel, and I can't tell you. Trust me."

She drove over to the Bishops' home in the morning. She knocked on Peter's door specifically. She heard him walking with his crutch over to the door and she said, "It's me, Olivia." 

He opened the door and said, "Is this work?"

"No," she said, stepping inside. She closed the door behind her while Peter worked his way over to the coffee maker on the desk. 

He poured himself a cup and said, "Do you want one? After this trip, I'm going to sit on the bed and miss my functioning ankle and foot and hand, so speak now."

"I'm good, thank you." She said, "But you will get your ankle and foot and hand back, right?"

He rubbed his forehead. "That's what they tell me. So why are you here?"

"I feel bad about where we left things last night. I came over to talk to you and be clear. But now I'm here and I'm not sure if I'm clear."

"You remind me of the Leonard Cohen song, did you ever go clear?" He sipped his coffee and put the mug down. "It's Famous Blue Raincoat, that's the song." She saw the fingers of his left hand moving like he was playing piano. 

"I know I wanted to say that any misery you saw on my part was from me thinking too much. The world sort of stopped making sense for me, and I couldn't make sense of my own actions so I just, I was thinking my way out of my own actions. But I was miserable because of me, never you," she said. "Well, I was really upset when you spilled half a bottle of really good scotch on my bed. And also when you nearly got yourself killed."

"Okay," he said. "I'm sorry I was being an ass last night. I'm in a lot of pain and I can't get anywhere, so. And are you saying that the world now makes sense to you?"

"No, it doesn't, but I'm trying to roll with it." She took off her coat and sat down next to him on the bed. "I think I was, it's hard to make sense when John had just died and in the way he died and I had these feelings for you."

"Feelings in your pants? That you had," he said, before drinking more of his coffee. 

"No, not in my pants. Not just in my pants," she said. 

He glanced over at her. She was sitting on his right side, she realized. She got up intending to move his other side but she stopped in front of him. She bent down and he reached up with his uninjured hand and they were kissing again. She sunk down to her knees and held his waist. He said, "I like you, too. Not just for your tits or the sex. I wanted to stay in Boston for you."

"That's really good," she said. She leaned forward into his chest and he ran his hand through her hair. 

He said, "If we're going to make out or just cuddle to celebrate this, it will be a lot easier if you come up here and we both lay on the bed."

She followed his directions and said, "You're very practical."

"No," Peter said. He was smiling at her like she was extraordinary. "I'm pretty aware of my limitations these days."

She shifted closer to him and tried to arrange herself so she wasn't bumping into his injured hand or foot. He put his arm around her. She said, "I'm not hurting you, right?"

He said, "No," softly. She kissed him again. And again. 

She said, "You got the shit beat out of you for me. And Walter. That's very sweet but don't you ever do that again."

"Please don't tell Walter, but it was more you than him," he said. He kissed her and she kissed him again. He unbuttoned her shirt and his hand was inside her bra. She reached behind her back and undid her bra clasp. "You're good at that," he said.

"Just trying to help," she said. She shifted so she was more laying on her back. Peter took his time getting her shirt and bra all the way off. He took even more time showing his appreciation of her breasts. She unzipped her pants and wiggled out of her pants and underwear. She pressed her hand against his clearly hard dick in his sweatpants. "Do you need any help there?"

"I like how direct you are," he said. She helped him get naked but mostly because she was impatient to have him inside her. 

"What's the best way to do this?" 

"With you, of course," he said, smiling. She rolled her eyes at him. He held her hip and she moved as he directed. She laid on her side, her back to him. He lifted her top leg, his on her thigh, then he was touching her right where she wanted. 

"Walter can't just come down here, right?"

He laughed into her neck. "You're supposed to wait until I'm in to ask that. And no, I lock the door when I come down." 

He thrust into her and it was so so good. He held her breast and she covered his hand with hers. They moved together and he was saying something into her hair. She said his name. 

She wiggled a little for a deeper angle and then she felt his cast against her back. "Ow, ow," he said. "Hold up." He nudged her into a better position for them both. 

"Sorry," she said. "Where were we?"

"About here," he said, pushing into her again. 

Some part of her she liked to ignore thought this was making love. She came with that idea pushing her over the edge.


	12. Chapter 12

She started every morning at the Federal Building staring at Broyles's whiteboard. They'd expanded it. It was a whole diagram now. Once Peter's irritating friend at the bookstore got them the copy of the ZFT, they were able to put more pieces together. ZFT, David Robert Jones, it all flowed from Bell. And Bell was living on the other side, attempting to keep the peace and make his money by pretending to help Peter's father. "Walternate" was what Walter called him. Nina Sharp strongly denied Bell had anything to do with Jones or Jones's machinations which seemed to include many of their Pattern cases. Only Walter agreed with her. 

She was staring at the board when Broyles came in. "Nina just tried to convince me she's on our side," he said. "She says she stopped a Homeland investigation of our department. Apparently Sanford Harris wanted to get involved with our work and put a stop to it."

"Your friend Sanford Harris?"

Broyles sighed. "Don't worry, Nina threw her weight around with Homeland and stopped it."

"She says he wanted in, do you believe her?"

"Sadly, yes," Broyles said. "I made a few calls."

Then the case came in of the boy whose brain had melted out his ears. Olivia and Charlie interviewed his parents and then his best friend. When she got back to the lab, only Walter was there, with an agent waiting outside. "Astrid and Peter went to talk to someone Peter knows about the boy's computer. Something was wrong with the floppy disks."

"Floppy disks?" Charlie looked skeptical.

"I don't remember the exact diagnosis, I don't care about the innards of the computer like my son. I was examining the boy's brain, what was left of it," Walter said.

"Did you learn anything?"

"Still working on it," Walter said, turning back to some distinctly horrifying liquid in a large vial. 

Charlie and Olivia looked through their notes until they got the call about the second body. Astrid met them at the car dealership. "I think I'm going to need his hard drive," Astrid said. 

"Not his floppy disks?"

Astrid smiled. "Is that what Walter said? Peter knows a guy so we've been trying to figure out what we can from the kid's computer, but another hard drive will make it easier."

They both winced as Walter examined the dead man with a sickening squish sound.

For Olivia there was more research. Something she did must have triggered the bad guy because she got a call from Peter to get home, someone at her apartment was downloading the virus. Olivia called Rachel from her car but got no answer. Peter said, "Astrid is driving us there, we'll see you there."

She burst inside. Ella was near tears, tugging at Rachel's arm. Rachel was staring straight ahead at the laptop, not even moving. "It's okay, Ella," Olivia said. She shook Rachel until Rachel finally blinked and looked at her. 

"Liv, there was something on the computer," she said. "I was looking for a job, and then it just showed up. I don't know what happened." Ella jumped into her mother's lap and hugged her tight. "I didn't mean to scare you, baby." Rachel looked over Ella's head at Olivia, petrified. 

Astrid came in, running. Between the two of them, they questioned Rachel and calmed Ella. Olivia said, "Where's Peter?"

"Here," he said, leaning on his crutch. He looked pale and he was shaking a little as he lowered himself into one of her chairs. 

Rachel finally smiled. "Hi, Peter," she said. 

Ella walked over to him and touched his knee. "Are you okay?"

"I stubbed my toe," he said, smiling at her. "I'll be fine. Let's go back to helping your mom."

Astrid said she would go back to Peter's guy, taking Olivia's laptop with her. Olivia helped Peter up. She didn't say anything until they were outside. "Are you okay?"

"I hit my foot," he said, gritting his teeth. "I have to remember I can't move fast."

"I'm going to drop you off at the hospital," Olivia said. "I want you back on your feet, both of them."

He started to protest but got in the car and put on his seat belt. He said, "You just want to go back to more exciting sexual positions."

"Maybe," she said. "Mostly, I want you not in pain all the time."

"And Rachel's okay," Peter said. 

"Rachel's okay," Olivia said. "I hope she didn't just get scared back to Greg."

"You Dunhams are made of sterner stuff than that," Peter said.

They found the man who had created the virus, but he killed himself.

Rachel told Olivia she had decided to stay in Boston. "I don't know what happened, and I don't want to know, but if something's going to happen to me, I don't want it to be while I'm married to Greg." Olivia hugged her. Rachel was wonderful. 

Rachel said, "Peter is more than pretty cute, by the way. I would say handsome."

"I agree," Olivia said. 

"You're blushing," Rachel said. "I'm glad you're not pretending you're not crazy for him anymore."

Olivia shook her head. She said, "And he managed to add three more weeks to his recovery trying to get in here to help you. He's actually supposed to go back to the wheelchair most of the time for a week or so."

"Ouch," Rachel said. 

"That's what he said," Olivia said, smiling.

She got up early and went to see Peter. She knocked on the door and when she heard him say "Come in," she used her key to go in. He was still in bed with his injured foot up on a pillow. "The door is unlocked upstairs, just to warn you. At least for the next week."

She sat down on the bed and touched his chest. "It's just a week."

He frowned. "I am almost desperate enough to try one of the therapies Walter keeps trying to tell me about."

"Please don't do that," she said. 

She'd been coming over in the early morning for two weeks now. Sometimes they didn't even have sex, just laid there talking. She had been looking forward to Peter having increased mobility. She cuddled up next to him. She said "Seriously, I don't mind if you take longer to recover, or you never run a marathon, I like having you around. And I don't think I want to know about the side effects of Walter's idea of better therapy."

"I don't think even Walter would argue that LSD can mend broken bones," he said.

"I'm imagining the side effects if he tried to give you some sort of worm DNA infusion," she said. She rubbed his chest, avoiding the scars. 

"Oh man, I don't know if he's thought of that, please don't say that around him."

A week later, Peter was only just back to using his crutch so he didn't come with them to survey the wreckage where they found what Marshall Bowman had become. She picked Bowman off of the passenger list. Charlie said, "John memories."

She frowned and stomped her feet from the cold. She wanted to avoid talking about this. 

But she couldn't. They found Bowman's accomplice, fellow agent, whatever he was but he started to transform as well. She said, "I need to go back in the tank."

"No," Peter said. "No."

"We have to," Olivia said. She convinced Walter and let Peter glower at her. She went back in the tank. 

She saw John. He looked right back at her. Walter started to say it wasn't possible, but then he stopped. He spoke again, "Olivia, try to ask him. Since he sees you somehow."

She asked him about Bowman and Hicks and Conrad. He took her to another memory and told her he'd been working undercover. "I'm so tired, John," she said. "I can't take one more lie."

"This isn't a lie," he said. "Liv, I know you're in love again."

"John," she said. "I want one thing to make sense."

"Liv, you know this makes sense." He said, "Trust Hicks. I love you. Always. I should have told you, I know."

Then he faded away. She was alone in her head.

She came out of the tank crying, clinging to Peter.

So she trusted Hicks. She found herself in Chicago, with Charlie at her side, trying to buy the weapon. She had Peter and Walter and Hicks advising her and Charlie. They caught Conrad. She leaned over him and said, "John Scott says Hi."

Conrad had connections to ZFT, of course. John must have learned about the pattern cases and all the other things he'd had hidden away while going after him. He was another entry on the whiteboard. 

She laid on Peter's bed, listening to him breathing. It felt dangerous spending the night with him. She was fairly sure even if Astrid and Charlie suspected they would never act to confirm it. But if Broyles knew. He kept talking about the division's powerful enemies. She was pretty sure it would be incredibly potent fuel if she was the agent who slept with the traitor and the ex-criminal. 

She was sleeping with an alien, she thought. She smiled. Peter stirred, holding her waist tighter. "What's funny?"

"I'm dating an alien," she said.

"I'm dating a firestarter," he said. 

"Did you tell Walter to stop telling me John couldn't be talking to me?"

"Of course," Peter said. "I don't know why he was being so stubborn about it."

"Thank you then," she said. 

"Is it weird, John being gone from your head?"

She said, "No." She leaned closer to him. "It was nice to get closure. That sounds stupid."

"It doesn't sound stupid," he said. "But then again, like you said, you're the one getting advice from an alien."

"We need to stop saying that," she said. She pressed against him, listening to his heartbeat until she fell asleep.


End file.
